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University of California • Berkeley

Regional Oral History Office University of California

The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California

The Wine Spectator California Winemen Oral History Series

Alfred Fromm
MARKETING CALIFORNIA WINE AND BRANDY

With an Introduction by
Leon D. Adams

An Interview Conducted by

Ruth Teiser

in 1984

ALFRED FROMM
1980

All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal
agreement between the University of California and
Alfred Fromm dated October 2, 1984. The manuscript is
thereby made available for research purposes. All
literary rights in the manuscript, including the right
to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of
the University of California Berkeley. No part of the
manuscript may be quoted for publication without the
written permission of the Director of The Bancroft
Library of the University of California at Berkeley.

Requests for permission to quote for publication
should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office,
486 Library, and should include identification of the
specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the
passages, and identification of the user. The legal
agreement with Alfred Fromm required that he be
notified of the request and allowed thirty days in
which to respond.

It is recommened that this oral history be cited
as follows :

Alfred Fromm, "Marketing California Wine
and Brandy," an oral history conducted
1984 by Ruth Teiser, Regional Oral History
Office, The Bancroft Library, University
of California, 1984.

Copy No.

CONTENTS — Alfred Fromm

PREFACE i

INTRODUCTION by Leon D. Adams iv

INTERVIEW HISTORY vi

I GERMANY 1905-1936 1

The Firm of N. Fromm 1

Apprenticeship and Studies, 1920-1924 2

Selling Wine for N. Fromm, 1924-1936 2

First Travels in the United States 3

II THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1936 8

Partnership in Picker-Linz, New York 8

Association with the Christian Brothers, 1937-1983 10

Joining Efforts With The Brothers 10

Beginning to Market Christian Brothers Wines 11

The World War II Years 14

American Wine in the Latter 1940s 15

Entering the Brandy Market, 1943 16

Creating an Advanced Still 19

Agreement with Seagram's, 1954 20

Business Principles 21

Fromm and Sichel, Successors to Picker-Linz, 1945 22

Association with Paul Masson 24

President, 1944-1955 24

Planting Vineyards in the Salinas Valley 26

Association With the Christian Brothers, Continued 28

Selling Christian Brothers Wines 28

The Vie-Del Company 29

St. Regis Vineyards 30

Growth of Christian Brothers 30

The California Brandy Business 32

Styles of Brandy 34

Sale of Fromm and Sichel to the Christian Brothers, 1983 36

Key Men at Christian Brothers 37

The Wine Museum of San Francisco, 1974-1984 38

Industry Organizations 42

III APPENDIX

Biographical Information 45

Alfred Fromm, Who's Who in America. 1982-1983 46

"100 million empty glasses," a 1957 speech by Alfred Fromm 47

Purchase of Fromm & Sichel by Mont La Salle Vineyards,
September, 1983

IV INDEX 53

PREFACE

The California wine industry oral history series, a project of the
Regional Oral History Office, was initiated in 1969 through the action and
with the financing of the Wine Advisory Board, a state marketing order
organization which ceased operation in 1975. In 1983 it was reinstituted as
The Wine Spectator California Winemen Oral History Series with donations from
The Wine Spectator California Scholarship Foundation. The selection of those
to be interviewed is made by a committee consisting of James D. Hart, director
of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; John A. De Luca,
president of the Wine Institute, the statewide winery organization; Maynard
A. Amerine, Emeritus Professor of Viticulture and Enology, University of
California, Davis; the chairman of the board of directors of the Wine
Institute, who is elected annually; Ruth Teiser, series project director, and
Marvin R. Shanken, trustee of The Wine Spectator California Scholarship
Foundation.

The purpose of the series is to record and preserve information on
California grape growing and wine making that has existed only in the memories
of wine men. In some cases their recollections go back to the early years of
this century, before Prohibition. These recollections are of particular value
because the Prohibition period saw the disruption of not only the industry
itself but also the orderly recording and preservation of records of its
activities. Little has been written about the industry from late in the last
century until Repeal. There is a real paucity of information on the
Prohibition years (1920-1933) , although some commercial wine making did
continue under supervision of the Prohibition Department. The material in
this series on that period, as well as the discussion of the remarkable
development of the wine industry in subsequent years (as yet treated
analytically in few writings) will be of aid to historians. Of particular
value is the fact that frequently several individuals have discussed the same
subjects and events or expressed opinions on the same ideas, each from his
own point of view.

Research underlying the interviews has been conducted principally in
the University libraries at Berkeley and Davis, the California State Library,
and in the library of the Wine Institute, which has made its collection of in
many cases unique materials readily available for the purpose.

Three master indices for the entire series are being prepared, one of
general subjects, one of wines, one of grapes by variety. These will be
available to researchers at the conclusion of the series in the Regional Oral
History Office and at the library of the Wine Institute.

The Regional Oral History Office was established to tape record
autobiographical interviews with persons who have contributed significantly
to recent California history. The office is headed by Willa K. Baum and is
under the administrative supervision of James D. Hart, the director of
The Bancroft Library.

Ruth Teiser
Project Director
The Wine Spectator California
Winemen Oral History Series

10 September 1984
Regional Oral History Office
486 The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley

ill

CALIFORNIA WINE INDUSTRY INTERVIEWS
Interviews Completed by 1984

Leon D. Adams Revitalizing the California Wine Industry 1974

Maynard A. Amerine The University of California and the State's Wine
Industry 1971

Philo Biane Wine Making in Southern California and Recollections of Fruit
Industries, Inc. 1972

Burke H. Critchfield, Carl F. Wente, and Andrew G. Frericks The California
Wine Industry During the Depression 1972

William V. Cruess A Half Century of Food and Wine Technology 1967

Alfred Fromm Marketing California Wine and Brandy 1984

Maynard A. Joslyn A Technologist Views the California Wine Industry 1974

Horace 0. Lanza and Harry Baccigaluppi California Grape Products and
Other Wine Enterprises 1971

Louis M. Martini and Louis P. Martini Winemakers of the Napa Valley 1973

Louis P. Martini A Family Winery and the California Wine Industry 1984

Otto E. Meyer California Premium Wines and Brandy 1973

Harold P. Olmo Plant Genetics and New Grape Varieties 1976

Antonio Perelli-Minetti A Life in Wine Making 1975

Louis A. Petri The Petri Family in the Wine Industry 1971

Jefferson E. Peyser The Law and the California Wine Industry 1974

Lucius Powers The Fresno Area and the California Wine Industry 1974

Victor Repetto and Sydney J. Block Perspectives on California Wines 1976

Edmund A. Rossi Italian Swiss Colony and the Wine Industry 1971

A. Setrakian A Leader of the San Joaquin Valley Grape Industry 1977

Andre" Tchelistchef f Grapes, Wine, and Ecology 1983

Brother Timothy The Christian Brothers as Winemakers 1974

Ernest A. Wente Wine Making in the Livermore Valley 1971

Albert J. Winkler Viticultural Research at UC Davis (1921 - 1971) 1973

INTRODUCTION

Alfred Fromm's interview is a fascinating narrative of
the contributions by an emigre German expert in premium wine
marketing to the post-Repeal advancement of California's grape
and wine industry. Historians of the industry and of its
important by-product — brandy — will find explanations in his
interview of some hithertoo little-understood aspects of the
industry's progress since the late 1930's.

What his modest recital does not fully explain, is the
part played by the late Samuel Bronfman, who headed the
worldwide Seagram wine and spirits empire, in enabling Fromm
and his associates to build Paul Masson Vineyards and The
Christian Brothers into major factors in the industry.

In 1943 during the Second World War, when the U.S.
government restricted whiskey production, Bronfman had
Seagrams purchase the Mt. Tivy winery in the San Joaquin
Valley, and also the then-small Masson mountain winery in
Saratoga, from Martin Ray. Bronfman's purpose was to market
brandy made at Mt. Tivy under the premium-quality name of Paul
Masson. When that plan was dropped, Seagrams sold Mt. Tivy to
The Christian Brothers, and part ownership of the Paul Masson
vineyard and winery to the partnership of Fromm and Franz Sichel.

I have known Alfred Fromm since 1938, when, while still
residing in New York, he first visited me and my then-
associates at the Wine Institute offices in San Francisco. I
later met his father and his brother Norman, and was privileged
to witness each stage of their achievement, with brother-in-
law Otto Meyer, in building Paul Masson into one of the
nation's leading wineries. Visiting Brother John and Brother
Timothy at the Brothers' winery in Napa County, I also
observed the renaming, inspired by Fromm, of their wines from
"Mont La Salle" to "The Christian Brothers." Brother John
shared Fromm's long-held view that wines of different years
should be blended in order to provide consumers with uniform
flavor year after year. This is why the Brothers and Paul
Masson Vineyards resisted for many years and until quite
recently, the trend toward vintage labeling of premium
California wines.

The Christian Brothers Wine Museum (The Wine Museum of
San Francisco), established in 1974 by Alfred Fromm, was an
unselfish effort to acquaint Americans with the noble cultural

history of wine. He made valiant efforts to preserve the
Museum until 1984, when, after the sale of Fromm and Sichel,
Seagrams decided to move the Museum to their headquarters
in Ontario, Canada.

Leon D. Adams

Author of The Wines of America
27 August 1984
Sausalito, California

INTERVIEW HISTORY

Alfred Fromm was interviewed on two successive mornings,
May 3 and May 4, 1984, at his office at 655 Beach Street in
San Francisco, shortly before the building was taken over by
Seagrams, which, as he explained in the interview, had pur
chased it the previous year. Final conferences on the
interview and the photographs to illustrate it were held in
his new office at 655 Montgomery Street in San Francisco.

Mr. Fromm's characteristic mildness and firmness are
reflected in the interviews. A courtly man with the manners
as well as the speech rhythms of his native land, he spoke
with deliberation but without hesitation. His life as a
highly successful salesman of wines and brandy in the United
States was built upon the principles instilled in him during
his early years with his family firm in Germany, principles
which he articulated in the interview.

Leaving Germany during the Hitler regime, he chose the
United States because of the freedom here, as he explained,
and that freedom, combined with his diligence and marketing
ability, created his success. Together with Franz Sichel,
whom he had known in Germany and met again in the United
States through Samuel Bronfman of Seagrams, he created the
firm of Fromm and Sichel in 1945 as successor to Picker-Linz,
through which he had represented The Christian Brothers since
1937. His part in the history of the development of The
Christian Brothers' wines and brandy is told here, as well as
the part played by his brother-in-law, Otto Meyer. Their
part in the rehabilitation of the Paul Masson winery is also
discussed here. It was during their leadership of Masson
that the development of the Salinas Valley as a vineyard
district began, when Masson and Mirassou, both looking for
land beyond Santa Clara County, joined forces to investigate
the potentialities of Monterey County.

vii

The initial interview transcript required little
editing. Mr. Fromm corrected some minor errors and added a
number of dates from his records. He preferred the spelling
Seagram's, with an apostrophe.

Related oral history interviews in this series are those
of Otto E. Meyer, CALIFORNIA PREMIUM WINES AND BRANDY,
completed in 1973, and Brother Timothy, THE CHRISTIAN
BROTHERS AS WINEMAKERS, completed in 1974.

Ruth Teiser
Interviewer-Editor

10 September 1984

Regional Oral History Office

486 The Bancroft Library

University of California at Berkeley

I GERMANY 1905-1936
[Interview 1: May 3, 1984] ##

The Firm of N. Fromm

Fromm: The firm of N. Fromm was started by my great-grandfather, Nathan
Fromm. He was a schoolteacher in a small wine village, and I'm
told — I didn't know him — that he had eleven children. The salary
of a schoolteacher in those days was really minimal, and there
never was enough money to feed and clothe the children and buy
them shoes. So my great-grandfather then started to help some of
the winegrowers in this small wine village and advised them how to
make better wines as he was a more educated man, and he taught them
about sanitation and so on.

As a result these vintners came up with a better product.
They were not very flush with money either, and they paid him very
often by giving him some wine as his fee.

So then he started to sell the wine and gradually built up a
little business. And after some years my great-grandfather decided
he should go into the wine business because he could not make a
living as a teacher, that he would buy the wines from those
vintners he knew in the Franconia district of Germany. It became
after a little while quite a nice business. He traveled within
Bavaria (because the Franconia wine district is in Bavaria). He
died, I understand, when he was in his sixties, and then my
grandfather took over.

By that time the family was already in the wine business. My
grandfather, Josef Fromm, developed the business further. He died
very young, when he was in his early forties, and I did not know him
either. Then my father, Max Fromm, who was thirteen years old when
his father died, took over and left school, because someone had to
make a living. He was an unusually capable man and developed later

Fromm: on into one of the best-known wine tasters in Germany, and became

then an adviser to the government, and over the years made the firm
of N. Fromm one of the leading firms in Germany.

The firm was at that time in Kitzingen on the River Main where
there were very many small wine firms, but our firm of N. Fromm was
the largest there.

Apprenticeship and Studies. 1920-1924

Fromm: When I was fifteen years old I had graduated from middle high

school. I was apprenticed to a large wine firm, Feist and Reinach,
in Bingen-on-the-Rhine, and I served a three-year apprenticeship.
And, as it was in those days, my father had to pay for my education
at this wine firm. But you really learned the wine business right
from the ground up, starting with the vineyards and moving into the
cellars. You learn an awful lot between fifteen and eighteen that
you don't learn later on. If you are an apprentice in Germany, you
are not nothing; you are less than nothing. [laughs]

But it was very good training. In the winter you had to
be in the office at six o'clock in the morning and stoking the fire
for the office, and later on at eleven o'clock go out and get the
sausages and the bread for the people for their second breakfast.
But I really learned the wine business.

The owner of the firm where I was apprenticed was one of the
outstanding men in the wine industry. His name was Joseph Guembel.
After I was there for two years, he took me into the wine tasting
room. There was every day a wine tasting between twelve and one.
I arranged the glasses and made notes for him, and then he said,
"Try this," and "Try that." I learned from Herr Guembel how to
taste and evaluate wine. He started to like me, and I was very
much interested. In fact, I never wanted to be in any other
business since I was a young kid, than the wine business. And I
learned an awful lot. When I was eighteen years old, I thought I
knew a great deal about German wine. But you know, when you are
very young you don't know how many things you don't know.

Selling Wine for IL_ Fromm. 1924-1936

Fromm: So after I was through with my apprenticeship I went to the

Weinbau-Schule, which was an agricultural college in Geisenheim,

Fromm: which in those days was the leading viticultural school in Germany,
and stayed there for about a year, taking various courses in wine
chemistry, wine treatment, and so on.

After that — by that time I was nineteen years old — I joined
our firm in Kitzingen. My father then insisted that after I had
worked another year in the cellars that I go out and be conversant
with the selling business of wine, because the marketing of wine
was always a problem for everyone.

So I started to travel extensively in Germany when I was
twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two years old, and I worked very, very
hard. My father insisted that I only call on new customers. I was
paid commission, but only half of what regular salesmen were paid,
because that was a German educational idea, that a son during his
learning period should not make as much as everyone else, but I
made good money anyhow. [laughing]

When I was twenty-three, twenty-four years, I had already in
my travels six or eight young men with me whom I trained and who
became good salesmen afterwards.

Teiser: To whom did you sell?
Fromm: We sold mostly to consumers.
Teiser: Direct?

Fromm: Direct. The wine business in those days in Germany was that way.
You called on consumers, and it was a tough job because very many
people didn't want to see you. But somehow I managed to do quite
well.

In 1924 our firm started to go into the export business, and I
traveled very extensively then in the export business and became
director of exports when I was twenty-five years of age. I
traveled in England, in Belgium, in Holland, and particularly up in
the northern states, in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway.

'irst Travels in the United States

Fromm: We were advised by our American agents that Prohibition would be

repealed in the United States, which finally took place on December
5, 1933. As I was the oldest son, I was sent here to build a
market. (I had a younger brother who was in the business, too,

Fromm: Paul, who's now in the import wine business in Chicago) On

December 4, I arrived in New York, and I never have seen such
excitement.

Teiser: Would you describe it?

Fromm: I never had been in such a large city as New York City. The people
were all celebrating, and there were a lot of people who were drunk
because it was the first time they could buy legally alcohol. On
the other hand, the Depression was still on, and the repeal of
Prohibition gave the people a great moral lift. They felt things
would get better, so they took it as a good omen that times would
improve, which fortunately they did. But in those days there was a
tremendous amount of unemployment and very great hardships to which
most of the people were not accustomed.

I went to our agents, Picker-Linz importers in New York, and
worked with them because none of the partners in the firm had
anything to do with wine before. They had ran other businesses,
and I was the only one who knew something about wine. And then I
traveled very extensively throughout the United States. I had a
little Ford car and I went from one end to the other, from north to
south, from east to west. I think I have been in every city of
fifty or a hundred thousand at that time existing in the United
States.

It was very, very difficult then because American people were
not used to drink wine, and it was mostly an upper class that knew
a little about wine, that had traveled to Europe before. But I
managed to sell quite a bit and built a net of distributors.

The most interesting experience I had was when I went in
January of 1934 to Los Angeles, because I had heard there were many
movie stars who made a tremendous amount of money, and there were
no licenses yet at that time. I had some connections to Mr. Carl
Laemmle, who was head of Universal Pictures, and he gave me some
recommendations. I called on some of the big movie stars, and I
was amazed how well they received me. They gave me very nice
orders for expensive wines. In those days we had those fabulous
1921 wines. You could get sixty or ninety dollars a case — for
ninety dollars you got a Schloss Johannisberg '21 Auslese, and it
was a tremendous price.

Then I wanted to call on William Randolph Hearst. I called
him from my hotel in Los Angeles. He didn't talk to me, and his
secretary told me they would come back to me and let me know if Mr.
Hearst could see me. What I didn't know was that they were

Fromm: checking up on me, who I was, because, the idea that someone could
think I might be a gangster or bootlegger never occurred to me.
[laughter]

Teiser: Let me interrupt you. You said somebody could be a gangster.

There was a good deal of opprobrium, was there not, about any wine
man, that carried over from Prohibition?

Fromm: Yes.

Teiser: Did you feel it?

Fromm: Yes, I did, and I was very much upset by it, because when people

talked about wine, they said we are in the booze business, and that
hurt my feelings very much, because the wine business in Europe was
always a highly respected business and really had nothing to do
with hard liquor. I hardly knew any hard liquor. When I came to
this country for the first time I tasted American whiskey and
Scotch whiskey because I never before had an opportunity to do
that. At home we had some German brandy that was always considered
good for your health, and you drank it once in a while. But as
children we never got any hard liquor. But we always got a little
wine with dinner. So I grew up with wine, and I must say until
today — I am seventy-nine years old — I have drunk wine every day. I
don't touch anything during the day, but I have half a bottle of
wine for my dinner, and I consider this better than vitamins or
Valium.

When I called on Mr. Hearst, he gave me orders for some
rare, immensely expensive wine, the very finest that was made in
Germany. Hesitatingly, I said to Mr. Hearst, "You know, Mr.
Hearst, that wine sells for three hundred dollars a case." I
have never seen or tasted anything like it since then.

Teiser: What was it?

Fromm: Nineteen eleven Steinberger Kabinett. Trockenbeerenauslese from the
Prussian domain in Eberbach. It was marked "Jahrhundert Wein" by
the Prussian government and it really was.

Then I offered him some other very outstanding 1920 and 1921
Rheingau wines and Franconia wines, and he gave me an order for
thirty cases or so. It amounted to over five thousand dollars,
which in those days was an enormous amount of money.

Teiser: Where did you meet him?

Fromm: Mr. Hearst visited with us when he was in Bad Nauheim, a very well
known health spa. There was a Profesor Groedel whom he consulted,

Fromm: and then after he felt better he wanted to make a few excursions,
and he came to Bingen, which was not very far, and visited our
winery and said to my father, "When your son comes over to America,
have him call on me." Of course, we took this for a regular
invitation and didn't know that this was often just a polite saying
like "Let us have lunch together sometime."

Teiser: Where here did you meet him? In San Francisco?

Fromm: No. I was invited to San Simeon. He sent his plane. I was

received by Marion Davies, who was a very charming and nice lady.
I was a young, inexperienced man, and she was very kind to me. I
was introduced to a lot of people, many of them famous movie
stars, and other big people but I never had heard their names
before, so it didn't make any difference. [laughing] But in those
days a young European, who was in the wine business, was something
new for better educated people, or people who had traveled widely.
So apparently I filled the bill.

Teiser: Did you go to San Simeon other times also?
Fromm: No.

I got some other recommendations from them. Some of the most
famous movie stars gave me very nice orders. In those days if you
paid for a case of wine fifty, sixty or ninety dollars, it was a
big price. So I sent these orders to Germany, and I spent
altogether six months in the United States and then went back.

Teiser: Were you in Northern California?

Fromm: Yes.

Teiser: Did people in San Francisco buy the same way?

Fromm: Being more conservative, they didn't buy this way, but I called on
Mr. Paul Verdier, who was the president and owner, I believe, of
the City of Paris. A Frenchman. Quite well known, quite well
versed in wines. He gave me a very nice order.

We did some good business in the U.S.A. and actually between
1933 and 1936 my own sales amounted to almost 26 percent of the
wine imports from Germany. Of course, the total business was small
in those days, but they were all good wines, because I could see
right from the beginning that the only chance German wines would
have would be to sell the very best, and address myself to a
special group of consumers; it was not for the average man who
didn't drink wine and drank whiskey or beer.

Teiser: That certainly gave you a good idea of the United States, then.
Fromm: Yes.

Teiser: At that time did you like it well enough to think you might ever
come back here?

Fromm: The fact is at that time the Nazis were already in power, and our
family is Jewish, so it was always a consideration: should one
stay, could one stay in Germany or not? After my first visit to
the United States I made up my mind this is the place I wanted to
live. I had traveled in England, and I liked it very much there.
But I loved the freedom here and the chances offered. If you did
the right thing, you really were on your own, something which to a
German was entirely new.

So I came back by the middle of 1934 to Germany, and I was
traveling in the European countries for the export of our wines,
where we did quite well. I think we sold to about forty foreign
countries altogether, our German wines.

The next year again I went to America and spent again in '35
and '36 six months each year traveling and completing a net of
distributors. I got acquainted with a lot of very good people.
They were very kind to me, and I really felt it was the place I
wanted to live.

II THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1936

Partnersip in Picker-Linz. New

Fromm: By 1936 the Nazi situation looked very threatening, and I decided
that we had to get out of Germany. I was the first one of our
family to come to the United States. I got married in 1936 to a
girl that I had courted since she was sixteen years old, Uanna
Gruenbaum. We are married now forty-eight years and we are still
very happy.

Teiser: You came to New York first?

Fromm: Yes. We came to New York. Then the firm of Picker-Linz, who were
our agents, offered me a small partnership. It was a very small
firm. And we came with almost nothing because we couldn't take
anything out of Germany. They let us take out some furniture and
our clothes and some personal belongings, but no money.

So I became a partner in this firm with a minimum investment
of maybe a thousand or two thousand dollars advanced by my wife,
and this is the way we started here in this country.

I went for Picker-Linz to Europe quite a few times in the
following years, in '36, "37, as they were in the imported wine
business. And I traveled extensively in Europe in the wine
countries, in France, Italy, Spain, and so on.

Teiser: Buying for them?

Fromm: Buying the wine, because I was the only one who was qualified to do
that.

Teiser: Were the wines shipped in bulk or were they bottled?
Fromm: We only bought bottled goods.

\lfred Fromm in 1936, the year he came
to the United States.

Alfred Fromm at an interview conference,
July 19, 1984.

Fromm: But I could see the preparation for war of the Nazis. I saw the

underground bunkers in Germany, and I saw in the Ruhr, which was a
heavy industrial part of Germany, the armaments they produced. I
could see that this would lead to a war. I told my partners that
one day we will be completely cut off from our foreign sources,
that wines cannot be shipped anymore, and that if we wanted to
remain in this business, we'd better make sure we find an American
source of supply.

Many people didn't believe that there was a war coming. My
partners were skeptical, too, but they said, "Well, if you are so
convinced, why don't you go to California and see what you can do?"

I just want to show you how I got into the California wine
business.

Teiser: That's a missing link that I had not known.

Fromm: So in the middle of 1937 I came to California. At that time there
were just a few wineries, and I looked around and called on every
winery in California to see what could be done.

Teiser: What was your impression? You had been to wineries all over the
world — what did you think of the California wine industry at that
time from that survey you made?

Fromm: The industry as such in those days hardly did exist. The aftermath
of Prohibition was still very much in evidence. There were many
vineyards with the wrong kind of grapes. The equipment in the
wineries was very old because there was no money to replace it.
The winery buildings were very old. There was really nothing there
to be particularly attractive. Most of the wineries that I called
on said, "Well, we would be glad to give you the agency, but you
must put some money in," and this was something that we didn't
have.

Teiser: Let me take you back again. You had a sudden view of something
that most people saw developing. What were the outstanding
wineries among those that you visited?

Fromm: There was Beaulieu. There was [Louis M.] Martini. There was Wente
[Bros.]. And there was Martin Ray, who had the Paul Masson winery.
There were maybe four or five premium wineries that made quite
acceptable wine.

Teiser: Was there a quality relationship to the fine wines of Europe?

Fromm: No, absolutely not. However, as I traveled so extensively in
California, and particularly in the Napa Valley, and as I knew
something about vineyards and saw the soil and the various
scientific reports that had been made, I had the feeling that if
this was handled properly, we can make in California a wine that
ultimately could be world class. I was a young man, but of course
when you are young you are enthusiastic and optimistic. I felt it
could be done.

Association with the Christian Brothers. 1937-1983

Joining Efforts with the Brothers

Fromm: So in my travels I came to the Christian Brothers in Napa. The

Christian Brothers at that time were in financial difficulties. As
you know, they are a religious order of the Catholic church, and
they had built monasteries and some colleges like St. Mary's
College, during the heyday of the boom, and then when the
Depression started they couldn't pay their bonds any more, and they
were in some sort of bankruptcy, like today we have Chapter 11 or
something like that.

So I called on them. There was Brother John, who was the head
of the winery, who was a few years younger than I, and Brother
Timothy, who was probably two years younger than I, and the three
of us, we put our heads together and we said, "Well, we have to do
something," because the only way the Brothers could get out of
their financial difficulty was to sell some wines.

Inasmuch as they were not bootleggers, they had accumulated an
inventory of old wines which they did use for sacramental wine.
This inventory was among the best in California.

So we put our heads together and we were good partners,
because they had no money and we had no money [laughing]. But we
all were young, and I felt we had to make a success, otherwise we
wouldn't eat, because many more members of my family had arrived in
the U.S. without hardly any money.

Teiser: Did you consider an association with any other wineries before
that?

Fromm: No, I really didn't. None really appealed to me as much as

Christian Brothers, and one reason for it was, too, that I had a
great feeling for the integrity of religious organizations in the
wine business, because in Germany, particularly on the Moselle,
some of the finest vineyards are in the hands of religious organi
zations, and also in Franconia. In the Rheingau the church always
had very important holdings of some of the very finest vineyards.
That was one reason why I thought it might be a good thing to
inspire confidence in the consumer. Even so, I was connected with
Christian Brothers for 46 years and we never mentioned the religious
angle, because it's a poor way to sell. If you ask a Catholic to
buy Christian Brothers wine because it's made by a Catholic order,
it's a poor way to do business. So this never in any way came into
play.

So in 1938 I spent about four months at Mont La Salle
vineyards in Napa up where the monastery is. I slept in the
bishop's room but I always had to get up very early because at
five-thirty one of the Brothers came through all the corridors
with a bell and said get up for mass. And breakfast was at six-
thirty. If you were not there at six-thirty there was
no breakfast because they did not run a hotel [laughing].

But I got up early, and Brother John, Brother Timothy and I
went into the winery and we took a sample of every barrel, a few
hundred small and larger, we tasted the wines, and we made some
blends. At that time there were no varietal wines, so we blended a
burgundy and a sauterne, some Riesling, and a few wines of this
sort. Then by late fall of 1938 we were ready to go to into the
market.

Beginning to Market Christian Brothers Wines

Fromm: The wines were considered in those days premium wines. (They

wouldn't be considered so today, but after all this was 1938, 46
years ago). We developed a unique label. In fact my wife, who is
more artistically inclined than I, first drew it up with lipstick.
We thought a Christian Brothers label in the shape of a triptych
would be the right label, and we had it printed by a printer who
helped us a little, because money was so scarce that we really had
to save every penny, and we did a lot of the work ourselves.
Brother John and Brother Timothy worked in the winery and I worked
in it too, so it was really a joint undertaking.

Fromm: When we started out to sell the wine, first in New York and then in
some other places —

Teiser: Through Picker-Linz?

Fromm: Through Picker-Linz as exclusive agents for the Brothers — it was
very hard to sell California wines. There were really only two
lines of American wine available that made some claim to quality
and that had wider distribution that the few premium wineries in
California. They were Taylor, New York, and Christian Brothers.
Those two lines were the two lines that were in almost every
store in New York and in many other states.

Teiser: I have been told that wine drinkers in New York were used to the
taste of European wines so that they had to get accustomed to
California wines. Is that correct?

Fromm: It is correct to some extent. Those were wine drinkers, and it

took us quite a few years before we really got to the consumer that
was used to European wines, because at that time we hadn't got
American people yet to drink table wine. They drank sweet wine,
port and sherry, also because it was the cheapest form of fortified
alcohol. The tax on fortified wine was much lower than it was on
distilled spirits. But we were quite successful in a small way,
and we then extended the business into New Jersey, into the middle
West, into Chicago and California. I traveled very extensively
six, seven months a year calling on distributors, traveling as a
salesman, because we were in fact missionary men. Most of the
wholesalers said there was no chance to do anything in the wine
business anyway, "Why do you waste your time here?" I answered,
"Give it a chance and you will be surprised."

So the business grew in a small way, and we opened up maybe 25
states within two or three years, and then in 1941 World War II
broke out.

Teiser: Did you before World War II establish a pricing policy that was
unusual?

Fromm: Yes. Our wines were all priced at the same level. In New York it
was one dollar a bottle, which was then a very high price because
you could buy a lot of California wine for 35 to 40 cents. One
dollar a bottle. We had this price throughout the country; we only
had one price. This was also new. We had only one label. The
only change in the label was the name of the wine.

Then we did something else. We found out that an educational
campaign had to be started, because otherwise people just wouldn't
buy any wine. We needed people to sell wine. Our wine wholesalers

Fronnn: just didn't care because a case of whiskey was selling for three or
four times as much, and the commission was much higher than on
wine. And the people just didn't know wine. It was really a
wasteland, America, as far as wine was concerned.

I still was optimistic. I always felt that it would come,
because the American people are very flexible, and if something new
comes up that is good they take to it. I think what has been done
in California in the last fifty years has taken Europe 250 years.
The American people, if they have faith in something, the money is
available, the people are available, the market is right there, and
it is just a question how to sell it. So our problem in the first
few years of the firm was to train salesmen of distributors.

Teiser: At that time, didn't Cresta Blanca have some reputation on the East
coast?

Fromm: Yes. In a small way.

Teiser: Was it priced below Christian Brothers?

Fromm: I don't think so, but it was not large. Later on it was taken over
by Schenley and it became a mass producer.

Teiser: Italian Swiss Colony was on a lower level —

Fromm: On a lower level. Gallo was in the business but was not yet as

important at that time. Italian Swiss was very much larger. But
most of the wines in those days were shipped from California in
tank cars, and if the wine did not ferment on the trip and the tank
car did not blow up on the way, it was considered acceptable wine.
It was 90 percent sweet wine. It was bottled by the distributor,
very often under his own label, and not very frequently under the
label of the winery. This was a radical change that took place a
few years later. Then wineries promoted their own brands, like
Italian Swiss and Gallo and Roma and others.

Teiser: But Christian Brothers was shipping everything in bottles all the
time?

Fromm: All bottled at the monastery. We never shipped anything in bulk.

Teiser: Did you consciously adopt the standardized label and the single

price, and shipping everything in bottles as a good merchandising
plan?

Fromm: Yes.

Teiser: Because it surely was.

Fromm: It was. And what was new was that we had what we called missionary
men, a few but as many as the firm could pay for, to help the
distributor to train some salesmen so that we would sell some wine.
I talked to thousands of salesmen during those years. If we went
to a large distributor who had, say 75 or 100 salesmen and three or
five were interested in wine, we were already lucky. I think we
were the first to adopt uniform label, uniform pricing, and had
missionary men that were paid by us and helped the wholesaler in
the fullest sense to sell wine, to train him to sell wine. And
that really paid off very handsomely for us. We were the first
ones to do that. Those steps resulted not from great smartness but
from necessity.

Teiser: [laughing] It sounds like a well thought out plan.

Fromm: Well, we had to do it. I always believed that if you are in this
business you have to go to the stores; you have to call on the
people who buy the wine, not go to the wholesaler and leave it up
to him, because if you do generally nothing happens. But if you
talk to the people direct and rather extensively, and call on
restaurants in the evening — And we worked extremely hard, twelve
hour days. But of course we were young and we wanted to make a
success.

The World War II Years

Fromm: In the meantime I brought out [of Germany] all my family. We were
seven children, and they had children. We were four brothers and
three sisters.

Teiser: Your father came too?

Fromm: Yes, but he came very much later, because he didn't think that the
Nazis could mean him. He was the last one to leave because he was
such a well known and highly regarded man, had a very important
title from the German government, "Kommerzein Rat," only given to
people who have made an outstanding success and contribution to the
country. So he felt that he was safe from the Nazi terror, but
unfortunately he was not.

So I brought out all these people, and we are one of the very
few large Jewish families that live all in the United States where
we have our roots today. Most Jewish families were dispersed all
over the world. It is a very fortunate thing for us.

Fromm: When the war broke out, very quickly the shipments from Europe

stopped. We were the only California winery that was ready with a
certain quantity of good wines — sweet wines and some table wines.
We became very succesful during the years, let's say, from 1941 to
1945. Our business increased rapidly. We went into every state of
the union.

We didn't do any advertising because there was no money for
advertising, and in those days the wine business was a small
business basically, but the firm made fairly good money. All of
the partners had a good salary. I drew only $25 or $50 a week out
of a total yearly salary of $10,000, but the difference was never
paid out until many years later. We needed every penny in our
developing wine business. In the beginning we had no credit.
Nobody knew us and we couldn't get any money from the bank in those
days because the firm was too small.

But we did between 1941 and 1945 what would have taken us
fifteen years of normal development, so the war situation
accelerated our business to a very considerable extent.

American Wine in the Latter 1940s

Fromm: In 1945 there still was no real California wine business or

American wine business. There was a poll made by Elmer Roper, who
interviewed 5,000 people in America at random to find out what they
thought about wine and what they thought the industry could do.
The result was, according to the survey, 90 percent of the wine was
bought by bums who wanted to buy cheap alcohol; 6 or 7 percent was
used by ethnic groups like Italians and others and foreign born
people. And maybe 3 percent was purchased by people who knew
already a little bit about wine. But as far as table wine was
concerned, the business was almost non-existent.

In 1945 and up to 1950-1955, it was very difficult to get any
good hotel or restaurant to list any California wine. We made great
efforts in this respect, and finally we got some wines listed. I
had a lot of connections with the finest stores in the country
through my earlier sales of imported wines, and they said, "Well,
Alfred, if you insist, we will buy five cases," but then they
languished some place in the corner and nothing ever happened.
There just was no demand in the finer stores for California
wines. And if a hotel or a good restaurant listed one or two
California wines, one white and one red, one burgundy and one
sauterne, then we felt we were quite successful.

Fromm: The wine business did not exist in the sense we know it today.

However, the large wineries eventually found out if they
wanted to make a success and earn enough money to improve the
vineyards and the plants and whatever was necessary to conduct a
proper wine business, that they had to make some money and that
they had to sell their own brands. This is when Gallo, Roma,
Italian Swiss, and some of the others started to sell wine under
the wineries' own labels. And this is really the start of their
brands and marketing.

They sold maybe 90 percent sweet wines, fortified wines,
because their type of customer was less used to table wines than
our customers were, which were already a step higher. So this
business increased, and by 1960-1965 you could see some more
optimistic developments. People had some faith that the wine
business could be developed in the United States.

Entering the Brandy Market, 1943

Fromm: Our wine business grew consistently, and what was particularly

successful for Christian Brothers was that we went into the brandy
business in 1940, and by 1943, when we had enough inventory, we
were able to come out with a very acceptable American brandy. At
that time many people thought it should be called American cognac,
which I opposed very much because we have to stand on our own, and
if you have to borrow the foreign names, it's not good business in
the end.

However, we came out with a clean, good product that was
entirely different from French cognacs, which were 99 percent of
the brandy category imported into America. We came out with a
product that was much lighter, less high in fusel oil and in
aldehydes than imported brandies, and was particularly fashioned to
mix well with other things like vermouth or whatever mixed drinks
were made in those days. Because I could see in my wide travels,
in so many restaurants and hotels and bars, that mixed drinks were
the big thing, and people rarely drank straight brandy. If they
did they bought cognac, but this was not a bar item. It was sold
in the finer stores and in the good hotels and restaurants as an
after-dinner drink. But I felt very strongly that brandy had a
place in the American way of life, particularly in spirits, because
it is such a versatile drink and it mixes with almost everything
and had to become a bar item.

Teiser: In the development of the brandy at Christian Brothers, who tasted
and who decided what?

Fronnn: Otto Meyer, who is my brother-in-law — he married my late sister — he
was in the brandy business in Germany. His family was in it for
generations, too. He knew a great deal about it, and he helped the
Brothers tremendously by advising us about the best way to blend a
brandy that was different from foreign brandy and that was more
eligible for use in mixed drinks. It was a lighter brandy and a
more palatable brandy. You know, French cognacs very often have
that soapy taste, which is very good for someone who likes it, but
the average person in America didn't like it. You see, in those
days, don't forget, people were a lot less sophisticated in
drinking than they are today.

Teiser: As I remember Christian Brothers brandy when it first came on the
market, it was rather sweeter than it is now.

Fromm: Yes. In those days sweetness was one thing that people were

looking for. It was not really sweetness in a sense but it was
softer and mellower. Then later on when people got more
sophisticated and really appreciated fine spirits, the Christian
Brothers reduced the level of sweetness considerably.

At that time, when we came out with Christian Brothers brandy,
the inventories of French cognacs in America were almost
nonexistent, and this became an instant success.

Teiser: How were you making it? Were you using pot stills?

Fromm: We didn't use pot stills for about three years, because we didn't
have the pot stills. When I say we I mean the Christian Brothers.
We didn't have a pot still in the beginning, but we picked out the
brandies very, very carefully from a large pool, and Otto Meyer
did really an outstanding job. Our brandy was far superior to
anything that was on the market and had an instant success.

Teiser: This was from the prorate pool?

Fromm: Yes. We went throught the whole pool, Otto and I. I think we must
have tasted probably six or seven hundred samples of brandy, which
was no pleasure. But we picked out those maybe fifteen, twenty
lots which were clean, which were nice, and which had some bouquet,
and then Otto made some blends. We came out with some brandy that
was a highly successful product and far superior in quality to
anything which was on the market.

Teiser: Then you started using pot stills?

Fromrn: Yes. Then the Brothers saw that pot-still brandy was a heavier,
richer brandy. It had to be aged between six to ten years to
really attain its full quality. You cannot use it as young as
regular brandy.

Teiser: The brandy made in a column still?

Fromm: Yes, the column-still brandy. It's pretty well at the proper age
when it's four years old. But by blending in ten to fifteen
percent of pot-still brandy, it gave our brandy that quality that
didn't exist before.

So we sold to every state in the union. We could have sold
more brandy if we had had the inventory.

Teiser: Were you making that at Mont La Salle?
Fromm: No, it was made at Mt. Tivy.
Teiser: Oh, you'd bought Mt. Tivy by then.

Fromm: Yes, the Christian Brothers bought Mt. Tivy from Seagram's.

Seagram's owned it at the time. We arranged that the Christian
Brothers could buy it at some very favorable terms of payment. On
each case that was shipped they paid a few pennies to Seagram's,
and after six or seven years the winery was paid off.

Teiser: That put you in a Thompson Seedless area, I assume.

Fromm: Yes.

Teiser: So that you had a good source of supply.

Fromm: Thompson Seedless makes good brandy. It makes a very neutral

brandy, and that is desirable, but in order to get more taste and
flavor into the brandy, we felt very strongly that we needed some
pot-still brandy. That's what got us into the pot stills, because
it's much more flavorful and gives you more substance. Because
you had blended whiskeys which were very light and didn't have much
taste, and vodka came into the market, and to me this was always
something that I never could understand why people drink anything
that had no taste and no smell and no nothing and was just ordinary
alcohol. But it became very successful, and there was a trend to
lighter drinks. The heavy bourbon drinkers gradually disappeared
and people wanted lighter drinks.

Teiser: Did you use some marketing strategy on that? As I remember, the
bottle was a distinctive shape.

Fromm: Yes, it was a nice bottle that we developed and a nice label, but
nothing really fancy because we always felt that the money had to
be spent on the product and not on the package. So we had a nice,
clean, good package, and the package has hardly ever been changed.
There was a slight improvement in the label but the package
basically is still the same.

Teiser: It's distinctive.

Fromm: Yes, because it's a recognized package and the bottle shape has
been copied by many others.

Creating an Advanced Still

Fromm: So the brandy business then became very large, made large revenue
for us. And then the Brothers put in a special large continuous
still down there, which was entirely different from the stills that
existed in California, because the California brandy stills are
generally high-proof stills, and we wanted a still with more
plates. A much finer product could be developed.

So we went to Seagram's, and Mr. Samuel Bronfman, the one who
developed Seagram's and the largest owner of the Seagram's company,
became a good friend of ours, and we asked him for some advice,
since he was an outstanding expert in spirits. He said to Franz
Sichel*, my partner, and to me, "There is only one way you can do
it. We will give you our best technical people from Louisville,
our still people, who build their own stills, and they will tell
you how it should be done." Then we had the right advisers how to
build stills, and the Christian Brothers stills today still are the
only stills of this kind in the United States.

Teiser: What did this type of still do that other brandy stills don't do?

Fromm: Well, it was a much more sophisticated still than any still existing
until today in California. It had a lot of improvements that the
whiskey people had worked out over many years for their products,
which of course was a big business and a lot of money was spent by
them on research. So we were the beneficiary of that and had a
brandy still that made cleaner brandy and brandy that did not have

*For an account of the formation of Fromm and Sichel, successors to
Picker-Linz, see pages 22-23.

Fromm: as much fusel oil and aldehydes as other brandies produced here.

Actually, we were very anxious that the Christian Brothers produce
for our sales a brandy that was lighter, softer, and would lend
itself particularly for blending in mixed drinks.

Teiser: Does a more sophisticated still "recognize" more sensitively the

factors in the brandy as it's being made and separate them out? Is
that — ?

Fromm: Yes, that's exactly what happens. It gaves us the means to double
distill the brandy and clean up any impurities.

So it was not all accidental that the brandy was successful.
It took a lot of planning and thinking. But as I have so often
said, the marvelous thing in America is that if you talk to the
right people they will advise you honestly and give you advice that
you couldn't buy for money. That happened to us.

As the brandy business developed further, we had of course to
borrow money for inventory at the Bank of America. The Bank of
America was very good to us. Very shortly after we started, we got
our first credit because we needed to make more brandy and at that
time you couldn't get any money in New York on brandy because the
banks in New York said, "We will loan on whiskey, but we don't loan
on brandy; we don't know it." So we went to the Bank of America;
who gave us the first credit, and were very good to us, and I have
worked with them since then and never been with any other bank
either for the firm or personally.

Agreement with Seagram's, 1954

Fromm:. However, the business ran away, and millions were needed to really
build the inventory, because at that time we sold already six or
seven hundred thousand cases per year of brandy. Your brandy,
let's say, is an average five years old, including the pot still, so
if you sell five hundred thousand cases you have to make two
million cases or two and a half million cases in order to have the
inventory at the same level and not even figuring on any increase.
So that took an enormous amount of money. So again my partner
Franz Sichel and I went to Samuel Bronfman, who was a very good
friend of ours. (I have his picture here on the wall; I'll show it
to you later) And we said, "What should we do?"

So he said, "Well, Seagram's will buy a 70 percent interest in
your firm if you want us to. However, on the condition that Franz
Sichel and you remain partners at a sizable share. Because," Mr.

Fromm: Bronfman said to us, "I believe that the most money can be made if
you have partners who are financially very much interested in the
firm." I said, "Sam, I do not want to work on a salary regardless
of what the amount is. I have never worked on a salary. When I
was young I worked on commission and I just don't work on a
salary." He said, "Well, we want you as a partner for that reason.
We don't want a man just on salary."

So Seagram's bought 70 percent. However, the understanding
with Seagram's was — and they kept this until last October, 1983,
when the firm was sold back to the Christian Brothers — that this
was run as a completely autonomous business.

After Franz Sichel died, in 1967, I was president and chief
executive officer. I moved in 1941 to California from New York
because it was important that a partner of the firm would be here
in daily contact with the Christian Brothers, the winery, in
California. We moved in '41 to California, and the business
developed very well and made money every year except in 1947, when
the Christian Brothers and we had a large inventory of wine and
then the price controls were dropped, and wine went from $1.20
(sweet wine) to about thirty or forty cents. But that was the only
year we lost some money, because we had a large expensive
inventory. Otherwise we made some money every year.

Business Principles

Fromm: I have, in those many years that I have been with Picker-Linz as a

partner and then with Fromm and Sichel, never have taken a penny out
of the firm except my salary and a bonus, because I wanted to
increase my stake in the firm, which I have done this way. So this
is one of the good things I can say about the German method of
running a business.

As I mentioned, we started in the export business of Christian
Brothers wine and brandy. We were one of the better known
exporters. We shipped to about sixty foreign countries. And the
nice thing was that we got a lot of re-orders. See, when you get
your first order and you don't get a re-order within six months,
then the wine doesn't move. But it worked out quite well. We sold
for less money in the export business than we sold in America. We
had one price. Nobody could get a different price from us. It was
an absolute principle. There was no discount; there was no under-
the-table business. I never found it necessary to bribe anyone or
to pay off someone. That's just no way to do business.

Fromm: In all these years that I'm in business in America, I found out you
don't have to be a mental giant, but you have to have certain
principles by which you stick, and this is honesty, and that you
know what you are doing and that you know the field in which you
are working. And if people trust you — and that's why I like it so
much in America — if people trust you, you really have no problems.

Another principle I always worked with is only to deal with
the best people, because if you are not so smart yourself and you
deal with sharpies, you mostly get the short end. If you deal with
honorable and first-class people you do all right. Sometimes
people asked me, "Alfred, how come you have so many good
distributors in the country?" I said, "Well, for a very simple
reason. Because they're people I could talk to, who trusted me,
and they're people who would pay us right away." We needed the
money right away because in a firm like ours that had developed
that fast there was never enough money, because all the money had
to go into the inventory.

Teiser: This arrangement with the Christian Brothers group and your group,
was there a parallel in the United States at all for such a
combination?

Fromm: I don't think so.
Teiser: It was unique?

Fromm: Yes. And as the Brothers often said to me, which pleased me very
much, before they made the contract with us they dealt with some
people in the East, and they said, "You know Alfred, since we were
dealing with a Jewish firm, we never had a better deal. You are
honest, you are men of integrity." I said, "Well, it's no more
than good business to be honest and have integrity." I have told
this to hundreds and hundreds of young men who have worked for us.
It was a principle that applied to anyone who worked in the firm.
So many of the young people, particularly today, think if you are
successful in business that you must have some tricks or that you
have some crooked ways of making money. I always tell them, "If
ever anyone told you this, they didn't tell you the right thing."

Fromm and Sichel, Successor to Picker-Linz, 1945

Teiser: When did Picker-Linz become Fromm and Sichel?

Fromm: Nineteen forty-five, on January 1. I associated myself as a

partner with Franz Sichel, who comes from the wine firm of Sichel-

Fromm: in-Mainz. He was ten years older then I am, a very good wine man,
and a very fine person. We were partners for almost twenty-five
years and never had one cross word. So it was a very happy
relationship. He knew I was more adventurous than he was and more
active and younger, so he let me handle things without interfer
ence. We talked every Sunday for an hour or an hour and a half on
the telephone, discussed everything that was going on, and then we
made our decisions right then and there. That worked out very
well.

I had already bought out all my other partners. And Franz
Sichel joined me in 1945. I needed a large credit in the Bank of
America. And just to give you an illustration of how things were
in those days, I got a three-year credit at 1 3/4 percent interest
per year. Those were different times and it was a very good rate.
But one of the top men in the Bank of America who liked me quite a
bit, had complete trust in me. He said, "Alfred, the fact that you
are so anxious to get the lowest rate of interest — only people who
want to pay want the low rate. The ones who don't want to pay,
they don't care what we charge them."

Teiser: Do you want to name him?

Fromm: Fred Ferroggiaro. He was an executive vice-president of the Bank
of America and chairman of the finance committee. A really old-
style banker.

Instead of three years, after one and a half years I was able
to pay off my loan at the bank. That was one of the happy days of
my life. I had a lot of deferred salary coming that I hadn't
drawn, so I drew that, and the taxes were low in those days. So I
paid off the bank. Franz Sichel borrowed, too, in the Bank of
America, and Seagram's had to deduce that I didn't need any help
from them. They knew me in the bank and I didn't need any
guarantees or anything. But they didn't know Franz Sichel, so he
borrowed in the bank, too, with Seagram's backing, and that was
paid off a little later. It was always a very excellent relation
ship of trust that we had with the Bank of America.

In those days the bank was a lot smaller, and there was much
more of a personal relationship. I mean, I had many good friends —
most of the presidents of the Bank of America have been personal
friends of mine because they liked to talk to a small businessman,
too, get his ideas and suggestions.

Sam Armacost, the new president of the bank, I know him well.
He's a personal friend. But if you want something, if you go to
Sam Armacost you are being turned over to someone else, because the

Fromm: man has so many responsibilities,
forty years ago.

It's not the same as it was

Fromm: In 1950 Seagram's became a partner in Fromm and Sichel. The

partnership consisted 70 percent of Seagram's and 30 percent was
owned by Franz Sichel and myself.

As I told you, we were completely autonomous. Seagram's was
always available when we wanted advice, but we never came to them
and said, "This is a problem and that's a problem." We said,
"Here, this is the problem; that's what we expect to do. Do you
have a better solution?" They always said, "Go ahead and do what
you described."

You know, as I so often say, the good Lord had his hand over
us. That you have to work hard, that you have to be honorable,
have integrity, that you know your business — that's only 50
percent. But the other 50 percent is being there at the right
time, getting together with the right people. And some people say
that's good luck, that's good fortune; I say it was a good hand
that was over us. In all those years. And I'm very grateful for
that.

Association with Paul Masson

President, 1944-1955

Teiser: There was quite an overlap, was there not, with your interest in
Paul Masson?

Fromm: Yes. Paul Masson was owned by Seagram's. They didn't do anything
with it. It was very small. They bought it from Martin Ray. It
was a premium winery, had some very, very good wines there. But
they had no sales organization. One day the head of Seagram's
called Franz Sichel and me and said, "We would like you to take it
off our hands." We said, "We'll be glad to do it, but we will pay
you only as we sell the inventory, because we cannot afford to
invest additional money and we don't want to borrow any more
money." They said, "Fine, do that."

Then I became president of Paul Masson, and I spent quite some
time down there. At that time my father was already here, and he
tasted every barrel of wine, and he was really an outstanding

Fromm: taster. And we put a small quantity of wine into the market at

that time at, I think, $36 a case, which was an unheard of price.
They had some beautiful wines there. That business developed very
quickly. The purchase price to Seagram's was paid off within two
years.

Teiser: You were president from '44 to '55.

Fromm: Yes. I ran the business in addition to our business here for

Christian Brothers, and we did very well with it, but there was a
limit how far we could grow because the inventory did not exist,
and the winery up in the hills in Saratoga was very, very small.
So we did a few things up there, like Music in the Vineyards,
started by my late brother Norman. You have heard about Music in
the Vineyards? It's already in its twentieth year at Paul Masson.
Open-air concerts. We founded that, and it has been done now by
other wineries, and the nice thing is if you do something right,
other people will do it, too. But it always takes someone to stick
his neck out and try to do it.

So we developed this firm, and then we could see there was
quite a chance in Paul Masson as a premium winery, as they were
only in the table wine business at that time. Otto Meyer, who was
with me in the firm, was asked to take over management of Paul
Masson and run it, and he became president and ran it quite suc
cessfully.

Teiser: Let me take you back if I may. As I remember, at the time that you
took it over, the winery wasn't very much and it had little vine
yard land. Is that right?

Fromm: It had a few hundred acres of top-grade vineyards up on the hill,
but the production was extremely small. We replanted quite a few
vineyards, and then in the early 1960s we bought a lot of new
vineyard land down near Salinas because there just was no land
available in Santa Clara County, as you know, with the development
of the whole Silicon Valley, at a price where you could afford to
have a vineyard. So we went down there and we planted about 1500
acres.

Teiser: In the meantime, did you have others making wine for you?

Fromm: Yes. We got some wines from Mirassou and from some other people

down there. They made it under contract for us. Then we built the
winery in Saratoga. That was at that time quite an undertaking.
And the champagne business was developed, the wine business was
developed. And then in Soledad another winery and crushing plant
was built.

Fromm: When Otto went to Paul Masson, there was some sort of jealously

between the Christian Brothers and Paul Masson, even though we ran
it separately and never had any difficulty in our mind to separate
those two and do the right thing for both. But the Brothers felt
maybe that I would spend more time on it, so we split it off and
made it a completely separate operation.

Teiser: For both of them.

Fromm: — by Picker-Linz first, and then by Fromm and Sichel. So we split
it up and they had their own organization.

Teiser: Masson was no longer distributed by your firm?

Fromm: No. They built their own organization and became quite big in the
meantime. They went more and more into production of large
quantities of wine. They now have another plant in the San Joaquin
Valley. But at that time when Otto and I were in charge, we really
ran it as a premium wine business, as a top-quality producer.

Planting Vineyards in the Salinas Valley

Teiser: When you bought the acreage in the Salinas Valley, was that a big
decision? Were you part of that decision?

Fromm: Yes. It was a decision that gave me many sleepless nights because
we didn't know how well a vineyard would do. We were the first
ones to do that. And after that Mirassou came in, and after that
Wente came in. But we were the pioneers. We were the first ones.
Masson bought acreage in 1960, Mirassou in 1961, and in 1962 their
first commercial plantings were made.

What we found out later was that the white grapes down there
were absolutely excellent but the red grapes needed something else.
Red grapes there are not as good as the grapes in Napa or Sonoma.
We planted only the best varietal grapes. Then later on the red
grapes were mostly grafted over to white grapes like Johannisberg
Riesling and Chardonnays and Semillon and Sauvignon blanc.

Teiser: You planted the vines on their own roots?

Fromm: No, they were all grafted on American rootstock.

Teiser: Originally?

Fromm: Yes. Even so, it's no phylloxera yet down there but it's coming

too.
Teiser: Then the Masson vineyards there won't be affected?

Fromm: Yes, they can still be affected; even a grafted vineyard can be

affected to some extent by phylloxera in a small way. But it's a
danger, you know — if you have pests in a certain territory you
never know how far it can go. Some of the chemicals that we used
before in spraying the vineyards are outlawed and the new ones are
less effective today, so we were very, very careful on that.

Teiser: Did you work with the university on various plantings for Paul
Masson?

Fromm: Every vineyard has been plotted and planned by UC Davis. They were
absolutley marvelous. They sent their groups down there; they made
the surveys and they made us plots of the various soil conditions
and all that, and we followed strictly their advice, and it turned
out very well. They are the best people in the world. I have been
around in my life, and I really can say that.

Teiser: Who there did you work with mainly?

Fromm: There are quite a few people, mainly, Dr. [A.J.] Winkler. We also
talked a great deal to Dr. [Maynard A.] Amerine, and to Dr. [Emil]
Mrak. Dr. Winkler was really in charge at that time. He sent
students down, and it was a good experience for them, and it helped
us and hardly cost us anything. It's a marvelous service. And as
I have often said, the California wine industry would not be where
it is today if it wasn't for Davis, because they are really the
tops in wine-making techniques and all that. They developed a
combination of modern American technology and European traditions,
which is what makes a good mixture.

Teiser: In the rehabilitation of both Christian Brothers and Paul Masson,
did you draw on your knowledge of European wineries to select
equipment for these wineries?

Fromm: We advised the Brothers, we helped the Brothers to get the best
equipment. We gave them the names and we put them in touch with
the various people. But in the meantine, the Brothers had
developed their own staff of really good people, so that was not so
much necessary any more. But we always consulted with each other
and worked very closely together. Unfortunately, Brother John
died very early, and there were a few successors who were not as
well versed in the wine business as Brother John was, who really
grew up with it, the same as I.

Teiser: Was champagne an important product for Paul Masson all along?

Fromm: Yes, it was. Champagne was the main product of Paul Masson, but

with the chances that we all saw in the wine business, we felt that
the wine business had to be developed and came very fast, and that
made it necessary then to build the new plant and to put the
vineyards in. And then Masson had a lot of contracts with other
vineyardists down in Monterey County, so the grapes were then
available. They were the first ones to put in a large vineyard,
and as I told you, then Mirassou and Wente followed afterwards.
There are good grapes from there.

Association With the Christian Brothers Continued

Selling Christian Brothers Wines

Teiser: One thing that you said yesterday that I was thinking about — you

said that when you started working with the Christian Brothers, you
decided that it was necessary to educate Americans about wine
drinking. How did you undertake that?

Fromm: Well, the first thing was that we had what we called missionary men
that called on our wholesalers and distributors and tried to
educate the salesmen so that they, in turn, would talk to the
retailers. In addition to that, we talked to a lot of wine
writers. There were not too many in those days, and they were all
new in the business and I was able to give them some helpful
information. It was amazing how much good will I found as far as
education of wine is concerned, because it's a very pleasant sub
ject.

Teiser: Another thing occurred to me: When you were tasting with the

Christian Brothers, were you trying to create a wine that was not
European, and not like previous California wines? What was your
aim?

Fromm: Our aim in tasting all the wines was to blend together the wines
which were most suitable for this purpose because the Christian
Brothers, and in particular, Brother John, Brother Timothy and I,
felt that we should come out with a product that was on a quality
level but at the same time, would appeal to the American taste.
And that meant, among the red wines that the wine should not have
excess tannin, that the wine had a certain softness to it. As you
know, particularly for a neophyte in drinking wine, the scale of
taste generally goes from sweet to dry. As I said to you

Gathered for a 1967 meeting in Montreal, left to right: Brother
Gregory of Mont La Salle; Samuel Bronfman, head of Seagrams;
Brother Charles Henry, first American Superior General of the
Christian Brothers; Alfred Fromm.

At the Christian Brothers' Greystone winery, late 1970s,
left to Tight: Brother Gregory, Alfred Fromm, unidentified
person, Brother Timothy, Walter Neihoff of Botsford Ketchum

Fromm: yesterday, America was really a wasteland in those days as far as
wine is concerned. We had to come out with something that would
appeal to the consumer but at the same time was on a very much
higher quality level then the California wines that were in the
market and were mostly shipped in tank cars from California and
were bottled and sold at very low prices.

The Vie-Del Company

Teiser: I don't know where it fits in, but I want to ask you about the Vie-
Del Company. Was it connected with either Christian Brothers or
Paul Masson?

Fromm: No, it was not. However, Vie-Del supplied blending sherry to

Seagram's, and we were talking to Jim Riddell and Mike Nury, who at
that time were running the Vie-Del Company. It was a very small
firm at that time, and we built, later on, brandy warehouses at
Vie-Del to store the brandy produced by the Christian Brothers.
Under our contract with the Christian Brothers only brandy produced
by the Christian Brothers could be sold under the Christian
Brothers label. This was in effect in all those years.

So we had our brandy warehouses there, and Vie-Del supplied to
Seagram's blending sherry, and we became very friendly. It took
considerably more money than Vie-Del at that time had of their own
to build the brandy warehouses, and their credit with the banks was
not very well established. So Fromm and Sichel purchased the
majority of the Vie-Del shares. We also got an option on the
balance of the Vie-Del shares, and after the death of Mr. [James]
Riddell all his shares would have to be purchased by us. So Mr.
Riddell knew that there was a market for his share in the business.
He did die some years later [in 1973]. And Mr. Nury
acquired from us some of the shares at a very advantageous payment
schedule, because he is an extremely capable man and has made a
great success of the Vie-Del Company. I was a partner in the Vie-
Del Company, too, but when I sold my shares to Seagram's in August
of 1983, they acquired Fromm and Sichel's shares in Vie-Del, too,
and own something like 87 percent of the Vie-Del Company, and Mike
Nury owns roughly 13 percent.

St. Regis Vineyards

Teiser: I think I read that in 1939 you bought some vineyard land in

California, maybe it was a small amount, and I think I noticed that
from time to time you had invested in other vineyard land. Is that
correct?

Fromm: No, our firm did not invest in vineyard land as early as that, but
we did later on. It must have been about 1975 that we founded the
firm St. Regis Vineyards, that was a subsidiary of Fromm and
Sichel, that acquired 350 acres of first-class vineyard land in Napa
Valley in order to produce additional top varietal grapes that the
Christian Brothers needed. The Christian Brothers did not want to
put their money in or were not able to put their money in for those
additional vineyards so we financed it, and then as the vineyards
produced grapes, we turned the grapes over to the Christian
Brothers.

St. Regis Vineyards still has this land under long-term
leases. It's right on the highway and near St. Helena and then
further up in the hills.

Growth of the Christian Brothers

Teiser: Over the years, then, since you have known and worked with

Christian Brothers, it's really developed considerably, has it not?

Fromm: Yes, it has developed to one of the leading wineries in the premium
business. It's not a boutique winery, it's a medium-sized winery
and sales were something like a million and a half cases of brandy
and between a million and a half and two million cases of wine. So
it's not a small winery.

Teiser: And it's grown physically, also?

Fromm: Yes, very much so. The Christian Brothers built additional facili
ties in the Napa Valley and they purchased, quite a few years ago,
the Greystone Cellars in Napa Valley. They purchased the Bisceglia
winery in Fresno. They built a big warehouse near St. Helena.
They put in additional vineyards of their own because it was
needed. They have invested quite some money in their facilities,
and we generally helped them in doing it. The Brothers own
approximately 1400 acres in Napa Valley.

Teiser: I read about Greystone being possibly not earthquake-proof.

Fronnn: Yes. Well, they will make a lot of seismic investigations now

to find out. That building looks like a fortress, and it has big
stone walls and all that, but it is earthquake country there, and
there is a certain danger, and it is such a popular place for
visitors to visit. I know there are sometimes a few hundred people
there, and God forbid you had something collapse. It could be
really catastrophic. Greystone was built in 1889, and of course
in those days one did not know how one could build better
earthquake-proof buildings. It is a beautiful place and a great
tourist attraction.

Teiser: The Christian Brothers champagne cellars are on the southern edge
of St. Helena —

Fromm: Yes.

Teiser: Can you say something about that?

Fromm: Well, we asked the Brothers to produce champagne, and then they put
in the Charmat process because in many tastings we found out that
we could make a more even-bodied champagne and stabilize the
quality. It's made in small tanks and they really have put out
a product that is very well accepted by the trade and by the
consumer because it is a very good champagne. It was made at
Greystone but now, of course, they have to relocate this and put it
where they have the big warehouse and storage capacity in St.
Helena.

Teiser: They were not making the methode champenoise champagne at Grey-
stone?

Fromm: No, it was all Charmat process champagne. Yes. They were making
it there at Greystone at first, and it was well aged there on the
upper floor where the champagne facilities were, and there was a
lot of room. We put the bottles aside for aging, and after some
time it was a really good product.

Teiser: The South St. Helena Charmat process facility itself was quite
advanced, was it not, when they built it later?

Fromm: Yes. Brother Timothy and some of his assistants had been to France
and to Germany and talked to a lot of people. And then we all
decided that the Charmat process for Christian Brothers would be a
better process than a bottle-fermented methode champenoise because,
as I said, we would have a more even quality product.

The California Brandy Business

Teiser: Have Christian Brothers' sales increased or have they hit a
plateau?

Fromm: Well, in the last few years, brandy sales were rather flat. They
increased every year by maybe thirty or fifty thousand cases and
there was a certain plateau. The Brandy Advisory Board, which
unfortunately is being discontinued, was able to promote brandy in
a way that a private firm could not do legally. On the other
hand, the brandy business is one of the businesses in hard liquor
that is more stable and has not receded; in fact the total
consumption of brandy has increased.

Teiser: The Brandy Advisory Board was started in 1972 —

Fromm: Yes. At that time the president of our firm, Jack Welsch, was

instrumental in establishing the Brandy Advisory Board. And all
the brandy producers were members of it, and there was a certain
assessment on each gallon of brandy produced.

Teiser: It was a California state marketing organization?

Fromm: Marketing order, yes, it was.

Teiser: Has it accomplished what it set out to do?

Fromm: We think it has, yes.

Teiser: Why is it being let go now, then?

Fromm: Well, there is a very large factor — the Gallos. And apparently Mr.
[Ernest] Gallo felt that if he spends the money on production that
he supplies to the Advisory Board on assessment, he could get more
for his money. However, now they're changing because, for the
first time, Gallo seems to be willing to cooperate with the
vintners, with the producers, to have a joint order for wine. This
is quite a change in his attitude. The Gallos are farsighted
people.

Teiser: The rise of brandy sales by Gallo, which has been overtaking
Christian Brothers —

Fromm: It has overtaken to a very small extent, and right now sales of

Gallo and Christian Brothers are about equal, but Gallo brandy is
selling for a much lower price than Christian Brothers in
general, and they give very large discounts. They are a privately
held firm and I think a very profitable firm, and they can well

Fromm: afford to do that. They have the enormous scale of size. Gallo is
the lowest-cost producer of any winery in the United States. So
they spend considerable money, but generally their brandy sells for
less than Christian Brothers'. They do not use any pot-still
brandy in their blend. That's a good part of it, so we think it
will always be neck and neck, the competition between Gallo and
Christian Brothers.

Teiser: The implication in Gallo's effort is that brandy can have a larger
market than it has. Do you believe that?

Fromm: Yes, I definitely believe that.
Teiser: Where would it come from?

Fromm: Well, brandy has a lot of versatility and can be used in very many
ways. We are getting away more and more from trying to sell to the
public brandy in a snifter because there is a different way of
using brandy. Brandy is a very nice and soft drink. It is a very
agreeable drink. It is made from grapes, so it has all the advan
tages in the public eye. A very good brandy is really a very good
drink. As people get away more and more from harsher whiskeys, the
brandy business has increased and will further increase the same as
the business in cordials has tremendously increased in the United
States — imported cordials and American produced cordials. And
they're being consumed mostly by the younger people.

Teiser: Then the brandy market could expand at the expense of whiskey or
vodka or —

Fromm: Yes, well, the whiskey business is receding and I think brandy can
take some of it. Brandy is only a small part, about 4 1/2 to 5
percent of the consumption of spirits. We feel that progress will
be slow but there will be progress every year and it is quite
possible that brandy will ultimately have maybe a market share of 8
to 10 percent of the spirit consumption.

Teiser: One of the brandy mysteries, I believe, is its heavy sale in
Wisconsin.

Fromm: The consumption of brandy in Wisconsin was for many years much

larger than the consumption of whiskey, and nobody has found out
the real reasons. Of course, there are a lot of European families
there with people of European origins — Germany, in
particular — who really didn't know any whiskeys, but brandy was
always considered a medicine and very healthy and a good drink.
But nobody has explained why the people in Wisconsin just drink
brandy so much. They drink a shot of brandy with a glass of beer.
A strange way for us to think of it, but that's what happens.

Fromm: Minnesota is a large market and we have done there very

considerable business. However, in Wisconsin the brandy business
was strictly a price-cutting business and, while we were there for
many years, we did not choose to give the brandy away and lose
money on it. So a lot of cheap brandy was sold.

Teiser: Are there imported brandies that are competitive with California
brandies?

Fromm: Well, certainly not the cognacs that sell for at least two and two
and a half times as much, but the so-called French brandies which
are not cognacs which are made in other parts of France from low-
priced wines. These grapes that are used in the cognac districts
are very expensive. There is a very limited production. So, yes,
there are some there to give us competition. Low-price brandies
particularly from France. And every wine-producing country in the
world produces brandy, too.

Teiser: Can you make brandy out of any old wine?

Fromm: Well, you can, but you can not make good brandy out of poor wine.
The wine has to be clean, it has to be fresh and has to be made
from the right kind of grapes, otherwise you have no flavor. And
if you have wine that is half-spoiled and you have so much fusel
oil in it, it becomes almost like gasoline; it's undrinkable.

Styles of Brandy

Fromm: Actually, when the Christian Brothers went into the brandy

business, there was hardly any brandy business in America. I think
we were really the ones who put brandy on the map. There was very
little brandy sold here.

Teiser: The California Wine Association had A.R. Morrow brandy.

Fromm: Yes, that was a very heavy brandy and there were some people who
liked it, but it was not really for the American taste. I think
Christian Brothers was the first one to find out what the American
people would like to drink, and then we tried to fashion a good
product and told the Brothers what we needed, and had a lot of
tasting on that and checked it continously, and decided that pot-
still brandy as I mentioned before was a necessary ingredient that
would give it quality.

Teiser: Just now there is at least one winery making pot-still brandy —
Schramsberg Vineyard, in a joint venture.

Fromm: Yes, yes, that's together with Remy Martin who is from France. But
pot-still brandy needs a lot more aging than continuous- still
brandy. It will probably take quite some time before it will be on
the market. All of the specialties can only be helpful to the
brandy business. I always have been of the opinion that good new
products — a product that has a special interest that can be produced
in small quantities — can only help the industry. It's, you know,
like going into a store to buy a dress. You want to look maybe at
ten dresses before you buy. That's how most women do. So you have a
certain variety that adds some interest to the search.

Teiser: Is there a "boutique" brandy industry starting?

Fromm: If there is there a boutique brandy, I think Christian Brothers had
it by putting out X 0 Brandy. X 0 [Rare Reserve] had 50 percent
pot-still brandy and 50 percent continuous still brandy and was
made from the oldest reserves of the Brothers. The Brothers today
have by far the largest inventory of old brandy and the largest
inventory of brandy altogether in the United States.

Teiser: They served it at your testimonial dinner, did they not?

Fromm: Yes, yes they did. I think that X 0 Brandy is something that can
well compete with good French Cognacs.

Teiser: I would think there would be a temptation for the same kind of

people who have a lot of money and don't mind losing it and want to
make fine wine — to get into experimenting with pot-still brandy.

Fromm: The brandy business is a very capital-intensive business. It takes
a lot of money to do that. As an example, if you sell a thousand
cases of brandy, the pot-still brandy would have to be six or eight
years old; you would have to produce each year enough for six or
eight thousand cases plus whatever you expect your sales increases
will be. So it takes a tremendous amount of money. It was the
fact that it takes so much money that led us to go to Seagram's and
find a very secure large financial basis where there was no limit
to how far we could extend the business.

Teiser: I remember having been in the experimental brandy distillery at UC
Davis. Have their studies contributed to the industry?

Fromm: Yes, Dr. [James F.] Guymon did a very creditable job. I would

certainly say that without the people who work in Davis, the wine
industry and the brandy industry in California would not be what it
is today. They have a great share, they can take a large share of
credit for that.

Teiser: I am told by industry members that the Data Annual summarizing each
year's California wine and brandy statistics, was of great value to
everyone. Would you tell about how Fromm and Sichel happened to
undertake the job of compiling and publishing it?

Fromm: We felt that as a public service we should give pertinent

information to the American wine writers, trade associations, and
others interested in this material that was not available otherwise
to them in such a comprehensive form. We felt that at the same
time it would build some good will for our firm.

Sale of Fromm and Sichel to The Christian Brothers, 1983

Teiser: To come back to recent events, Fromm and Sichel continued until
just this last year?

Fromm: Fromm and Sichel was sold to the Christian Brothers on October 1,
1983.

Teiser: What part of the holdings of Fromm and Sichel went to the Christian
Brothers?

Fromm: Only those holdings that they needed to run the sales business of
their products.

Teiser: You said that the reason for the sale —

Fromm: The issue was that the Christian Brothers were very anxious to

combine marketing and production — to synchronize that because this
became sometimes a problem. And it had something to do, too, with
my retirement, as I was running the firm for so many years. So we
turned over a lot of the brandy inventories — the inventories were
all made by the Christian Brothers, but we paid for them at time of
production because the Christian Brothers couldn't afford to keep
brandy inventories of something like $80 million to $90 million.

So we turned over to the Brothers the amount of brandy that
they needed for their sales. They asked if they could continue
with the name of Fromm and Sichel because we have a respected name
throughout the country, which we agreed to. And they took some of
our top people, including our general sales manager, who was with
us for many years, Al [Allen] Nirenstein, and so we have helped
them as much as we can and we will continue to help because we want
to see them succeed.

Fromm: I have a personal reason in that, too, I was for 47 years connected
with the Christian Brothers, and the firm Fromm and Sichel has my
name in it. I was a founder of Fromm and Sichel, and the best part
of my business life I spent with the Christian Brothers, so I have
a very warm feeling for the Brothers in my heart and I help them
whenever possible.

Teiser: Do you still work a little with them, then?

Fromm: Well, they ask me sometimes about certain things, and they know

that if there's any problem coming up where I can be of help, that
I will be glad to do it and so will the Seagram's company.

Teiser: What is the organization known as the Brandy Association of

California with which you continue to be associated as chairman of
the board?

Fromm: It was until the sale of Fromm and Sichel to the Christian Brothers
a subsidiary 100 percent owned by us. Over the years Brandy
Association sold brandy produced by Vie-Del to other brandy
marketers. After the sale of Fromm and Sichel, substantial
assets, including our office building, not sold to the Christian
Brothers were transferred to Brandy Associates, now a Division of
Joseph E. Seagram and Sons, New York, and 100 percent owned by
them. They have taken over certain pension matters and other
obligations of Fromm and Sichel.

Key Men at Christian Brothers

Teiser: Have you tasted for them all these years?

Fromm: Yes, we have done a lot of tasting. That was, I think, maybe one
of my main contributions that I could make in the production — in
tasting — because it was with Brother Timothy and in former years,
Brother John. Brother John was a dynamic guy and he died,
unfortunately, much too young and I would say, Brother John and I
really put the business on the map. It was a very close
cooperation and, as I think I mentioned, in the beginning neither
the Brothers nor we had any money to speak of, so it was necessaary
to do a lot of things together and fortunately, it did work out
well for both parties.

Teiser: Did the two of you sort of teach Brother Timothy?

Fromm: Well, Brother John probably did to a large extent, but Brother

Timothy has a very good palate. And Brother Timothy is very good
in public relations. I mean his whole appearance. And he's a very
kind man and a very knowledgeable man. He has been very helpful in
the development of the business, and we have asked Brother Timothy
very often to call on certain customers, together with some of our
sales force, which has always been successful.

Teiser: Are there others among the Brothers who have become experts?

Fromm: Well, there are some and then, of course, they have some lay people
who run the wineries and their production. There was John Hoffman
who was in charge of production of table wines in Napa, and he is a
brother of the late Brother John. And then down in Mt. Tivy
winery in the San Joaquin Valley, there was Herman Archinal — a very
capable man who worked very closely with Brother John. Those
people are not there any more. They have retired now. There are
new people now there. They were there for many years; you know, we
all have gotten a little bit older in the last 47 years.

Teiser: But they haven't been able to bring up any Brothers as experts?

Fromm: Well, I always told them how important this was, and they have some
people, but they are not as conversant with all the new production
techniques that are required today. So they hired some very good
lay people.

The Wine Museum of San Francisco. 1974-1984

Teiser: There were other assets of Fromm and Sichel that were disposed of?
Fromm: They were not disposed of to the Christian Brothers.

This building here, that was owned by Fromm and Sichel, was
sold recently and this is one of the reasons why the Wine Museum
has to be dissolved, because it's part of this building. I built
this building twelve years ago as headquarters for Fromm and
Sichel, but since I sold my stock 100 percent to Seagram's, Sea
gram's actually, now is the owner of this building. It's held by
Fromm and Sichel, but Fromm and Sichel is owned 100 percent by
Seagram" s.

Teiser: So it was really Seagram's, through Fromm and Sichel, who made the
sale to the Christian Brothers — is that right?

The Wine Museum of San Francisco, incorporating The Christian
Brothers Collection, was opened in 1974.

Above , Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Fromm at the opening reception, with a
grape vine sculpture by J. B. Blunk commissioned for the museum.
Below} the Thomas Jefferson Gallery.

Fromm: That's correct.

Teiser: But Seagram's held on to this building?

Fromm: Yes.

Teiser: There's a picture of you and several other men standing on a board
in what looks like London after the blitz, with glasses of
champagne. And it's the site just before construction started.
It was clearly a very happy occasion.

Fromm: Well, you know, this building site was really a slum, with some
miserable schlock stores. But we bought this lot because it has
such a marvelous location particularly for the museum, you know —
the end of the cable car line. And there's a tremendous amount of
visitors here in this neighborhood, so we were very anxious to get
the lot. It was very expensive in those days, but today it's
probably worse — three times as much.

Teiser: Who designed the building?

Fromm: Worley Wong, architect in San Francisco.

Teiser: You must have worked very closely with him, did you?

Fromm: Yes, we did, yes.

Teiser: Was the wine museum conceived as part of it originally?

Fromm: As soon as we built the building we created space for the wine
museum and built an extra addition for it.

Teiser: The wine museum — may I ask you about it?

Fromm: Well, I always felt that a wine museum that would deal exclusively
with wine in the arts would be a great asset to our industry. In
fact, the Wine Museum of San Francisco is the only museum in the
United States that deals exclusively with wine and the arts. We
don't show any old barrels or any big wine presses or things like
that, but we really deal with wine in the arts. My late brother,
Norman, and I and my wife, we collected for about forty-five years
and got some marvelous artworks which today are almost
unobtainable. Even if today, say, you want to spend a few million
dollars, you couldn't get those collections together because the
stuff just isn't available or you can buy it at some auctions — one
thing here and one thing there — but it takes many years to get a
collection together.

Teiser: Did you buy through agents in Europe, or —

Fromm: Well, we bought through agents in Europe and people we know that
had connections. We bought things here, and I had a very large
collection of wine books, about a thousand wine books, some of them
very, very rare and old, going back to almost the earliest type of
printing, in Latin and in Italian. English wine books are, of
course, a much later date. And I own this collection and it will
end up at the new Seagram museum in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada,
which was just built and will open very shortly. It is a very
large museum for wines and spirits. Most of our collections will
go there.

Teiser: I'm so sorry San Francisco is losing all that.

Fromm: Yes. It was really a labor of love. It was a special project of
mine, but that's the way those things go, in very large companies
decisions are being made that are very difficult to change and the
very top management of Seagram's just didn't want to overrule them.
They felt the Wine Museum wouldn't produce any revenue. Well,
that's of course the wrong attitude. You know, man doesn't live by
bread alone.

We had in the museum every year between 100,000 and 125,000
visitors. We were very choosy — we never accepted any bus tours.
We could have had 500,000 people a year if we had bus tours, but we
didn't want it because a museum should be a place where you can
leisurely browse around and really enjoy what we have, and I think
it has created a lot of good will not only for Christian Brothers
but for the whole industry. And I am very industry-minded. I
always felt that what's good for the industry is good for us too.

Teiser: Could you speak a little of Mr. Ernest Mittelberger's part in the
museum?

Fromm: Yes. Well, when we opened the museum, Ernie Mittleberger, who had
worked as Public Relations Director of Paul Masson and who had
worked with me for many years before in New York when our firm was
in New York — the old Picker-Linz Company — he was there with us, and
I knew that Ernie was always very much interested in art. He was a
real student — typical German student, you know; they were very,
very thorough. He had to know. So when we opened here, I said,
"Ernie, I want you to take that over."

First he said to me, "Well, I don't know if I could do it, if
I'm qualified."

I said, "Ernie, you are qualified. You just find out what you
have to do." And within a couple of years, it was amazing how well

Above, Ernest Mittelberger, director of the Wine Museum of San Francisco, and
Alfred Fromm examine a wine jar of King Solomon's time that was given to the
museum by Teddy Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem.

Below, at a reception given at the museum, left to right, Philip Hiaring,
publisher of Wines and Vines; Baron Philippe de Rothschild, guest of honor;
Alfred Fromm.

Fromm:

Teiser:

Fromm:
Teiser

Fromm:

Teiser
Fromm:

things ran and how people came to him for information as he was
very sound in what he was doing. Ernie and I, we planned then
together those various exhibits in the museum which were very well
received. We were very anxious that the museum not be used for
propaganda and not for trying to sell something. We never sold
anything in the museum. Yes, you could buy a few postcards for
twenty cents or the book that Ernie wrote as co-author.

I have a copy of it, In Celebration of Wine and Lift
Lamb and Mr. Mittelberger.

by Richard B.

You probably saw the foreward that I wrote.
Yes. I'm about to ask you to autograph it.

There was also a second book, wasn't there, on art?

Yes, there have been quite a few books. Some odd publishers came
to us and wanted to reproduce a number of our artworks and they
did, and they were always very well received, but we never in any
way whatsoever promoted any sales of them because I felt this was
the wrong way for a museum. A museum should be a public place and
a place for the good of the public, and ultimately you get some
benefits out of it, too.

What will happen to the glass collection?

The glass collection belongs to the Franz W. Sichel Foundation.
Franz Sichel, as I mentioned, I think, to you yesterday, was my
partner for almost twenty-five years. After I started to collect
wine antiques, I finally induced Franz that he should do something
too (this goes back now about thirty years) and he started to get
interested in wine glasses and he had some very excellent advisers,
true experts, because those things you have to know. He got a
fabulous collection together and this was exhibited in our office,
of course. Not all the glasses could be. That was one of the
reasons we wanted to show them in the wine museum. Unfortunately,
when we opened the museum years ago, Franz was not alive anymore,
and then I was appointed president of the Franz Sichel Foundation,
and we got the glasses here on loan from the Franz Sichel
Foundation. They own the glasses. We didn't want to buy them.
That would have been a very sizable investment. His collection is
worth, I don't know, probably something between $600,000 and a
million dollars. But we were very happy to see the exhibit that
carries Franz's name, and it will go to the De Young Museum In
Golden Gate Park here for permanent display.

Industry Organizations

Teiser: I wanted to ask you about the Wine Institute. Did you feel that it
did a good job educating the consumer, a matter you spoke of
yesterday?

Fromm: They did a good job while they had the means. Then they had to
stop it, because the [Wine Advisory Board] assessments were
discontinued, but the Wine Institute has many other important
functions. It looks out for the industry, and almost everybody in
the wine industry is a member of the Wine Institute. It takes care
of all the legal matters. As you know, every state has a different
law for alcoholic beverages, so we are not in that respect in the
United States. And there is a federal law. There are continuous
changes, continuous difficulties by smaller states that produce a
little wine that want to enact preferences and tax wines higher
from California.

You wouldn't think such things would exist in the United
States, but under the change in the Constitution the states really
have the first right — it follows in many ways the guidelines of the
federal law. And then we have of course those state monopolies,
where only the state can sell wine and liquor, and they have not
been very helpful to the wine industry. It's a bureaucratic sys
tem, and it's been not good for the consumer by its limited choice
of offerings.

Teiser: Do the same or similar regulations apply to brandy?

Fromm: Yes. Whatever alcoholic beverages there are.

Teiser: I believe you served on a committee of the Wine Institue.

Fromm: Yes, I did serve on several committees years ago, but I never

wanted to be a director of the Wine Institute because actually it
is a producers' organization. Jack Welsch and some other people
from our organization were directors. I felt I had more impact in
talking through them.

John De Luca [president of the Wine Institute] is an
absolutely outstanding man. It is a very difficult job to balance
the various forces. You know, after all, Gallo is the largest
contributor to the Wine Institute.

Teiser: Has James McManus of the Brandy Advisory Board been a help to the
brandy industry?

Fromm: Yes, he has. They were able to do certain advertising and tastings
that under federal law we could not do. It has been a useful
organization.

Teiser: Is there now going to be a voluntary brandy organization to follow
the Brandy Advisory Board?

Fromm: We don't know yet. There probably will.

Teiser: Is there something more I have not thought of to ask you?

Fromm: Well, you know what the set-up is at the Christian Brothers. The

Mont La Salle Vineyards is owned by the De La Salle Institute. The
Mont La Salle Vineyards is a taxpaying organization, and the De La
Salle Institute is not. The money that the Brothers are making is
being used for the maintenance of several of the schools, and this
has been successful enough so that the Provincial has had enough
money out of the business so that they never had to close down any
of the schools. They are good educators, and any good school is
good, regardless of what faith you are. In the end if it's taught
with the right principles it only can do some good.

As you probably know, I have been a regent of St. Mary's
College for many years and was awarded an honorary degree in 1971.
My wife and I founded the Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning at
the University of San Francisco ten years ago. Both my wife and I
got an honorary degree, Doctor of Public Service, for the formation
and funding of the Fromm Institute, because it was something new
and needed. It has become the most successful institute of its
kind in the United States. We educate retired people during the
daytime at an advanced university level in an age group from fifty
to nintey years. Students are taught exclusively by prominent
retired professors, chosen from the University of California, Stan
ford University, San Francisco State University, University of San
Francisco, and others.

Transcribers: Sam Middlebrooks and Lindy Berman
Final Typist: Ernest Galvan

TAPE GUIDE — Alfred Fromm

Interview 1: May 3, 1984
tape 1, side A
tape 1, si.de R
tape 2, side A
tape 2, side R 24

Interview 2: May 4, 1984
tape 3, side A
tape 3, side E 36

Regional Oral History Office University of California

Room 486 The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California 94720

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
(Please print or write clearly)

Your full name

Date of birth 2- - 2- 3 " f ? S $ Place of birth

/A/ I / v

Father's full name

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Birthplace U/\0 55 1_ AA/& n~£.(rj / •£

Occupation kjrfCR Q I- A • / '\t(*j /~~£Q .S

Mother's full name M fyTH-( Lf\ £

Birthplace _ /- / J C // /U' /-!•
Occupation _ //-r>CMJ^S 'M:/

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Where did you grow up ? l\ i u ^ ^

Present community r/ LLI.

Education /V { ./) /) L € tf" / g

Occupation(s) K/ ///g /)/" S/ /Q // ON£ p

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FROMM, ALFRED, dnibg co. exec.; b. Kitzingen. Germany. Feb.
23, 1905; s Max and Mithildi (Mtier) F.. undent Viticuliuril Acid..
1920: LH.D. (hon.), St Mary's ColL, 1974; D.PuWic Servke (hon.).
U. San Francisco; m. Hanna Cruenbaum, July 5, 1936;
children— David George. Carolynn Anne. Came to U.S., 1931,
naturalized. 1943. Export dir. N. Fromm, Bingcn. Germany, 1924-33;
v.p. Pickcr-Lintz Importers, Inc., N.Y.C, 1937-44; exec. v.p. Fromm
A Sichel, Inc., N.Y.C, also San Francisco. 1944-45. pres.. 1965-73.
chmn. bd.. chief exec, officer, 1973—; dir. Joseph E. Sestjam ft Sons.
Inc. Dir. Calif. Med Clinic for Psychotherapy. San Francisco, 1964 — .
Mem. nat council Eleanor Rooaevelt Meml. Found.. N.Y.C; trustee
San Francisco Conservatory Music; relent St Mary's Coll.. Moral*
v.p. Jewish Nat Fund; bd. din San Francisco Opera Assn.; founder,
prea. Wine Mus., San Francisco. Clubr Concordia, Commonwealth
(San Francisco). Contbr. articles prod jours. Home: 850 El Camino
del Mar San Francisco CA 94 1 2 1 Office: 655 Beach St San Francisco
CA 94109

From Who's Who in America
42nd Edition, 1982-83

47
100 MILLION EMPTY GLASSES

Address by Alfred Fromm, Executive Vice President, Fromm and Sichel, Inc.,
San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, World Sales Agents for
The Christian Brothers Wines, Champagnes and Brandy, before the
Advertising Club of San Diego, National Wine Week Luncheon, at the
El Cortez Hotel, San Diego, October 16, 1957

Mr. Chairman, honored guests, members and friends of the Advertising Club
of San Diego, ladies and gentlemen:

It is my great pleasure to bring you the warm and friendly greetings of
California's 35,000 grape and wine growers — growers who, at this very moment,
are busily gathering in the vintage.

For this is the peak of the harvest season, and in the hills and valleys
of our great State, from San Diego to Eureka, from the coast to the Sierras, busy
hands move the crop from vine to vat amid the fresh aroma of the bubbling Juice.

And this, too, is National Wine Week — set aside each year at this time
by official State proclamation to honor one of California's most important indus
tries and to focus public national attention upon the products of our abundant
vines.

I am most grateful for this opportunity to speak to you of wine in the
historic City of San Diego. It was almost at our very door step here, beside the
Mission bearing your fair city's name, that the first wine grape vineyards were
planted by Father Junipero Serra just 188 years ago, marking the birth of grape and
wine culture in California.

Wine, it has been said, is one of man's greatest gifts, bestowed by Nature
in one of her more loving moods. To the truth of this, we of the wine industry
most emphatically subscribe. It is sometimes difficult to be prosaic about the
product by which we live --a product extolled in Bible and legend, in verse and
narrative, in song and art. Yes, even completely outside of our industry there are
tens of thousands of men and women in all of life's walks who regularly foregather
to pay homage and tribute to the vintager's artistry. To mention but a few:
The Wine and Food Societies, The Societies of the Medical Friends of Wine, The Wine
Appreciation Societies, The Gourmet Societies, and many more. They form the inner,
active circle of an ever growing public on whom the quality producers of California's
premium wines and champagnes largely depend. They do not represent, however, the
great American public whose attitude toward wine, we were glad to have confirmed in
a recent study by opinion analyst Elmo Roper, is friendly and favorable. The great
American public, Roper found, thinks of wine in most cordial receptive terms but
they think of it as something special, to be enjoyed not just every day but chiefly
on special occasions.

We produce in California a wide range of good wines in different price
classes. Coming from an old wine family in Germany myself., I can tell you with all
my conviction that the average wine of California is consistently better than the
average wine of Italy, France, or Germany. Too, wine is made here under more
advanced scientific and sanitary conditions than is the case in Europe.

I am not talking about the very small quantity of fine European vintage
wines that are produced once in a while in good years and due to their rarity have
to be sold at very fancy prices, but about all other European wines. This is not
only a personal conviction but a fact that has been proven time and again in an
extended series of blind wine tastings. People of all classes and tastes from
layman to connoisseur have participated in these tastings, and have not only, in
the majority of cases, failed to identify the origin of the wine as being European
or Californian but, furthermore, the overwhelming majority have expressed their
taste preference for California premium wines.

We are proud and happy as .Americans of the high score California has had
in these tastings. Most heartening to us was the average cost of the California
wines which were subject to these tastings and which were purchased in stores through
out the country. Their cost averaged $1.35 per bottle of wine, whereas the European
wines cost an average of $3.57 per bottle. The average cost of the California
premium champagnes, which scored so heavily over the champagnes of our French col
leagues, was $5.4l compared to $8.83.

i The growing of fine wines in California has been, and is being, spearheaded
by the producers of premium wines. None of these is a volume producer and their
aggregate production amounts to only about 5$ of California's total production, but
it is a significant group indeed from the standpoint of pioneering the name of
California as one of the world's great wine producing regions.

However, the fact that wine has not found the place it rightfully deserves
in the American pattern of living is not caused by economic factors. The large
producers in California furnish to the consumer a worthwhile product at very reason
able cost, and even the finest premium wines are within the reach of millions of
people .

What, then, is our problem? A few figures will give you the idea: Wine
consumption in Western Europe varies from 15 to 30 gallons per capita annually. In
the United States, on the other hand, the figure is only 0.9. What's more, beer
consumption in this country is a whopping 16 gallons per capita, coffee 27 gallons,
and even soft drinks are consumed at the rate of 12 gallons per inhabitant. In
California the situation is, of course, much better than in the rest of the country
for here we consume close to 3 gallons per capita annually, but even here we feel we
have not begun to tap the potential of the market for wines. Looking again at the
country as a whole, our best estimates tell us that 85$ of all the wine is consumed
by roughly 15$ of the population or, conversely, that 85$ of the people consume only
15$ of the wine. You do not need a slide rule to see what would happen if we could
bring these 85$ who now use little or no wine to consume only as much as the remain
ing 15#.

Actually, we as an industry have been hard at work to develop a larger
market for wine in this country. We are critical of ourselves though, and engage in
continuous self examination as to what we can do. The problem of increased con
sumption has been tackled on seven broad fronts, as follows:

First, we developed several new wine types that have found high public
favor, particularly with people who seldom had used wine before. Outstanding among
these new types are the mellow red wines often called "Vino", and the gay, colorful
Rose's whose popularity is increasing rapidly.

Second, we took wine out of the category of a commodity and began to create
wine brand consciousness. This was done by greatly intensifying our efforts in the
areas of merchandising and advertising.

- 2 -

Third, we stepped up industry trade educational work with store keepers and
clerks, restauranteurs and waiters, and our distributors and their salesmen. The
Wine Institute and the Wine Advisory Board have contributed importantly to the
success of this phase of the program.

Fourth, we broadened and extended industry public relations work with
consumers. The Wine Institute's Study Course -- in which I would urge all of you
to enroll — has been of significant value in communicating facts about wine to the
public. Recently the public relations firm of Hill and Khowlton has been retained
by the Industry to assist in developing public interest in our wines, particularly
with people who mold public opinion.

Fifth, we have undertaken many new research projects in such diverse fields
as wine economics, consumer taste preferences, consumer attitudes, the great benefits
of wine in the field of medicine, and numerous others. These have helped materially
to improve our understanding of the industry and some of this research may one day
open up whole new vistas of wine as an integral part of the American way of life.
At this point, it is befitting to express the Industry's gratitude to the University
of California for its unselfish devotion and high standards of achievement in many
of these research projects.

Sixth, and most important of all, we intensified our work in quality
improvement in all phases. Large acreages of improved grape varieties were planted
to produce finer wines. Lessons learned from intensive research were applied to the
handling of grapes, crushing and fermentation. Larger and larger inventories of
wines were set aside for aging each year to create a solid foundation of improved
quality on which to build the increased sales we confidently expect.

And, finally, we invested many millions of dollars in wine production, aging
and bottling facilities and equipment that are the most modern to be found anywhere
in the world. All of these things were done — and, for that matter, are continuing
to be done — to bring the consumer the best possible product we are capable of
producing. Truly, it can be said that California wines in all price classes today
are of distinctly higher quality than ever before in history.

These efforts have paid off handsomely, particularly in three products of
the wine industry — Champagne, Vermouth and Brandy.

Sales of California champagne have risen 150$ in the last 10 years, compared
to about 35$ for table wines and less than 10$ for dessert wines. The reasons for
this remarkable growth are quite clear. We have improved our quality tremendously,
heightened the attractiveness of our packaging, developed strong point-of-sale
techniques and kept prices at moderate levels.

While California champagnes were tripling in volume, imports increased less
than half as much during these past ten years. People discovered that California
champagne quality is second to none in the world — including the choicest imports
selling at double or more the California champagne price. Today, American champagnes
outsell the foreign product almost three to one and the spread is widening.

Much the same thing has happened with Vermouth. Right after Repeal in 1933*
and for years thereafter, France and Italy supplied practically all the United States
Vermouth demand. Now the pattern is changing rapidly. California vermouth sales
have more than doubled in the past ten years and are fast catching up with the import
volume. The American public has learned — just as they learned with champagne —
that the California product is tops in the vermouth field and twice as good a buy as
the import.

- 3 -

So, too, with California brandy. Only even more so, "because the California
product now sells at two and one-half times the rate of foreign brandy. Here is a
shining example of quality improvement, merchandising and brand development paying
off. California brandy is achieving fast-growing recognition as the most versatile,
the most pleasing of all spirit beverages. Patiently aged for years under United
States Government supervision, California brandy is enjoying the greatest market
advances in its long history — and the outlook is for more of the same.

You will now have realized that we are faced with an inherent paradox: on
the one hand we are proud of the association of wine in the minds of the public as
a contribution to better living. Yet, on the other hand, we must fit wine into the
picture of hamburger, apple pie, and the general pattern of everyday American living.
Ladies and gentlemen, the necessity of resolving this paradox is what we as an
industry bring before you. And it is only you who can work with us on this job.
To do this we must, through you, communicate to the American public the good and
simple facts about wine. We must convey the fact that wine is a food beverage, to
be enjoyed with other foods, or Just by itself, and for its own goodness. It must
help to motivate the millions of people who are friendly toward wine to emerge from
their apathy, and to discover wine's pleasures.

In which direction should our advertising be channeled?

Today, there are uncounted millions of younger people — the newly marrieds,
the thirty and forty-year olds — women especially — who know little or nothing
about wine. Many of them yearn to know, or would if their attention were directed
to the virtues of wine.

Wine's most important place, however, is in the home, on the family table.
Its pleasurable and temperate use will set the pattern for the generation now
growing up and a civilized approach to wine when they become adults. In this area,
more than in any other, the future of the wine industry rests.

Effective advertising can help sell a worthy product or service. And wine
is no exception. At this point you are in a key position for you are the connecting
link between our industry, ready and anxious to serve the public, and a public
enjoying an unsurpassed standard of living, with more leisure time than ever in
which to enjoy the good things of life.

We realize that advertising alone cannot solve our problems but it must
carry a very important share of the common effort.

I think I speak for all of us in the wine industry in saying that we today
have a very different idea of the relationship between advertising and our work.
Whereas only a few years ago, an advertising agency meant to us only an intermediary,
we realize today the many other vital services that the advertising profession
offers us and we gratefully avail ourselves of them.

We now work closely with the advertising agency of the Wine Advisory Board,
Roy Durstine Co., and the agencies for our respective brands in all matters concern
ing merchandising, such as packaging, the development of trade marks, point of pur
chase material, promotional literature, etc., and even production has often been
influenced considerably by the advertising profession who is in daily touch with the
consumer, his needs, and his preferences.

Last year when I had the pleasure of speaking during National Wine Week to
the Advertising Club of Los Angeles, I stuck my neck out in predicting a 100$ in
crease in wine consumption within the following five years. I am happy to say a year
later that my head is still on my shoulders, and it is my hope to keep it there for •
the next four years. There is no telling how far the wine business can go in this
country, and I believe that you and we together will succeed in fashioning the key
to unlock the cabinets and shelves throughout the Nation, behind which 100 Million
Empty Glasses stand ready to be filled with the good wine of our own State.
Thank you very much.

1882 CENTENNIAL 1982
™ CHRISTIAN BROTHERS.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For further information contact: Ron Batori

Director of Public Relations
Mont La Salle Vineyards
(707) 226-5566

NAPA, CALIFORNIA, September 22, 1983. . . Brother David
Brennan, F.S.C., President and Chairman of the Board of Mont
La Salle Vineyards has announced an agreement to acquire for
an undisclosed sum certain business assets of Fromm & Sichel,
Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Joseph E. Seagram & Sons,
Inc., related to the distribution of THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS
brandy and wines as well as the facilities for the aging and
bottling of brandy.

The acquisition is being made by a newly formed company
in which the majority of common stock is to be owned by
senior management of Mont La Salle Vineyards and the newly
formed company, and the balance by Mont La Salle Vineyards,
producers of THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS brandy and wine. In
making this announcement, Brother David said,

"The new company, which will retain the name
Fromm & Sichel, Inc., will provide the foundation
for growth in the marketing and sales of THE
CHRISTIAN BROTHERS brandy and wine.

more. . .

THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS MONT LA SALLE VINEYARDS PO BOX 420 NAPA CALIFORNIA 94559 707-226-5566

Page 2.

Brother David has also announced that R. Paul Toeppen is
Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer
of the new company. Allen M. Nirenstein will be appointed
Executive Vice President /Sales.

Brother David added,

"Importantly, the firm of Albert E. Killeen
& Associates, Inc. has been retained to direct
the structuring and implementation of marketing,
sales, merchandising, promotional and advertising
plans, and the development and positioning of new
products.

Albert E. Killeen, President of the firm that bears
his name, was formerly Vice Chairman of THE COCA
COLA COMPANY, and President and Chief Executive
Officer of THE WINE SPECTRUM."

In concluding, Brother David said,

"The formation of the new company, along with new
senior management at the winery and significant
capital improvements currently in progress, provide
a strong foundation for the resurgence and position
for growth of THE CHRISTIAN BROTHERS brandy and
wines. "

BDB/bhs

A. R. Morrow (label) brandy, 34

Amerine, Maynard A., 27

Archinal, Herman, 38

Armacost, Sam, 23

Bank of America, 20, 23

Beaulieu Vineyard, 9

Bisceglia winery, Fresno, 30

brandy, 5, 16-20, 32-35, 36, 42

Brandy Advisory Board, 32, 42

Brandy Association of California, 37

Bronfman, Samuel, iv, 19, 20-21

California Wine Association, 34

Christian Brothers labels, iv, 11, 12, 13, 14, 19

Christian Brothers, 10-43

City of Paris department store, 6

Cresta Blanca wines, 13

Davies, Marion, 6

De La Salle Institute, 43

De Luca, John, 42

de Young Museum, 41

Distillers Corporation-Seagrams Limited. See Seagrams

Feist and Reinach, Bingen-on-the Rhine, 2

Ferroggiaro, Fred, 23

Franz W. Sichel Foundation, 41

Fromm and Sichel, 19, 21, 22-24, 26, 29-42 passim

Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning, 43

Fromm, Hanna Gruenbaum (Mrs. Alfred), 8, 39, 43

Fromm, Max Jr. (father of Alfred Fromm), 1-3, 24-25

Fromm, Max Sr. , iv, 1

Fromm, N. company, Kitzingen, Germany, 1-3

Fromm , Nathan , 1

Fromm, Norman, iv, 25 ,39

Fromm, Paul, 4

Gallo, Ernest, 32

Gallo, [E. & J.] winery, 13, 16, 32-33

German wine industry, 1-7, 11

Greystone Cellars, 30-31

Guembel, Joseph, 2

Guymon, James F., 35

Hearst, William Randolph, 4-6

Hoffman, John, 38

In Celebration of Wine and Life, 41

Italian Swiss Colony wines, 13, 16

Jews under Nazi regime, 14

John, Brother, iv, 10, 11, 27, 28, 37, 38

Joseph E. Seagram and Sons. See Seagrams

Laemmle, Carl, 4

Lamb, Richard B., 41

Martini, Louis M. , winery, 9

Masson, Paul, [Vineyards] iv, 9, 24-28, 29, 40

McManus, James, 42-43

Meyer, Otto, iv, 17. 25, 26

Mirassou [Vineyards], 25, 26, 28

Mittelberger, Ernest, 40-41

Mont La Salle Vineyards. See Christian Brothers

Mt. Tivy, iv, 18, 38

Mrak, Emil, 27

"Music in the Vineyards," 25

Napa Valley, 10, 30

Nazi regime in Germany, 7, 8, 9, 14

Nirenstein, Allen (Al; , 36

Nury, Mike, 29

phylloxera, 26-27

Picker-Linz, 4, 8-9, 12, 19, 21-23, 26, 40

prices for wine, 12-13, 14, 21, 25

Prohibition, 3-4, 5, 9

prorate, 16

Ray, Martin, 9, 24

Remy Martin [et Cie.], 35

Riddell, James, 29

Roma [Wine Company], 13, 16

Roper, Elmer, poll, 15

Salinas Valley, 25, 26-28

Schenley Distillers, 13

Schramsberg Vineyard, 34-35

Seagrams [Distillers Corporation-Seagrams Limited and

subsidiaries], iv, 18, 19, 20-21, 23, 24, 25,

29, 35, 37, 38-39, 40

Sichel, Franz, 19, 20, 21, 22-23, 24, 41
St. Mary's College, 10, 43
St. Regis Vineyards, 30
stills, 17-20 '

Taylor Wine Company, New York, 12
Timothy, Brother, iv, 10, 11, 28, 31, 37-38
University of California, Davis, 27, 35
University of San Francisco, 43
Verdier, Paul, 6
Vie-Del Company, 29, 37
Weinbau-Schule, Geisenheim, 2-3
Welsch, Jack, 32, 42
Wente Bros. , 9, 28
Wine Advisory Board, 42
Wine Institute, 42

Wine Museum of San Francisco, iv, 38
Winkler, Albert J. , 27
Wong, Worley, 39
World War II years, 12, 14-15

WINES MENTIONED IN THE INTERVIEW

burgundy, 11, 15

champagne, 25, 27-28, 31

Johannisberg Riesling, 4, 26

port, 12

Riesling, 11

sauterne, 11, 15

Schloss Johannisberg [Riesling] 1921 Auslese, 4

sherry, 12

Steinberger Kabinet Trockenbeerenauslese, 1911, 5

GRAPES MENTIONED IN THE INTERVIEW

Chardonnay, 26
Sauvignon blanc, 26
Semillon, 26
Thompson Seedless, 18

Ruth Teiser

Born in Portland, Oregon; came to the Bay

Area in 1932 and has lived here ever since.
Stanford University, B.A. , M.A. in English;

further graduate work in Western history.
Newspaper and magazine writer in San Francisco

since 1943, writing on local history and

business and social life of the Bay Area.
Book reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle,

1943-1974.
Co-author of Winemaking in California, a

history, 1982.
An interviewer-editor in the Regional Oral

History Office since 1965.

U. C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES

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Full text of "Marketing California wine and brandy : oral history transcript / and related material, 1984"

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